LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 2024 severe weather season has come in like a lion. April and May have featured incredibly active weather patterns. In fact, we have had more severe weather outbreaks than normal this year in the nation, and locally.
How does the number we’ve had in the viewing area compare/contrast to other seasons?
Nationwide
The latest severe weather outbreak was this past weekend, Sunday May 26, with 47 confirmed tornadoes across the United States. Twelve of those tornadoes were in Kentucky, and resulted in five deaths across the state.
At this point in the year, 2024 is the second most active severe weather season, falling behind the super outbreak of 2011. More than 200 tornadoes occurred across five states in April that year, resulting in 319 fatalities. It was the deadliest and costliest tornado outbreak since records began in 1950.
That means we have only seen this many tornadoes, this early in the year, one other time.
Over 1,000 tornadoes have touched down through May of 2024; 324 more tornado reports than normal so far this year. There were 384 tornadoes reported in April and 517 in May. By the end of May last year, the tornado count was just shy of 800.
Locally
Annually, the average amount of tornadoes in Kentucky based on records from 1998-2022 is only 24. We surpassed that number in the first 5 months of this year.
The entire state of Kentucky has had 39 tornadoes so far this year through the month of May. Compared to the same time in 2023, only 21 tornadoes had occurred.
Indiana has gotten more than its fair share of severe weather this year too, with 36 reported tornadoes. Interestingly, that number is an exact tie with tornado reports in the state January through May of 2023.
Indiana only averaged 26 tornado touch-downs per year from 1998 through 2022. The past two years have been much more active than usual.
Traditionally, May is the peak of severe weather season in the Ohio Valley, though tornadoes can occur at any point during the year.
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