440+ tornadoes reported so far in 2026

The twister that struck near Enid, Oklahoma, this past Thursday received a (preliminary) EF-4 rating from the National Weather Service. This was the strongest tornado confirmed so far in 2026.

Tornado activity across the United States is running slightly ahead of pace for this point in the year, which is unusual given that most of the activity has avoided parts of the southeast where you'd expect bad storms to lurk in March and April.

Between January 1 and April 24, we've seen around 448 confirmed tornadoes from California to Vermont.

I say "around" 448 because that might be a slight overcount due to the way the NWS reports tornadoes. Paths that cross from one office's area of responsibility to another are sometimes (temporarily) counted as two tornadoes in these damage surveys.

Those tornadoes include...

• EF-5: 0
• EF-4: 1
• EF-3: 6
• EF-2: 37
• EF-1: 225
• EF-0: 153
• EF-Unknown: 26

Here's a closer look at the bulk of those tornado tracks:

It's very unusual to see so many tornado tracks across the Midwest this early in the season; activity usually waits until the summer months to start lifting north. This is largely due to the prominent ridging we've seen over the southeastern states during the past couple of months, which is responsible for shunting the active storm track farther north.

We're likely going to see these numbers tick up over the next couple of days as our active pattern produces several additional rounds of severe weather across the Plains and Midwest states.

The U.S. usually experiences a peak in tornado activity around the beginning of June.

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Eastern drought continues getting worse as rains drench the Great Lakes

A dramatic split-screen has developed in recent weeks as relentless rains over the Great Lakes and Midwest stand in stark contrast to the worsening drought over the southeastern states.

Persistent ridges of high pressure over the southeast have kept conditions hotter and drier than normal since the beginning of March. Many communities have already seen temperatures creep into the 90s, which is more typical of late May than early to mid-April.

The orientation of the jet stream, along with these repetitive ridges, have forced rain and thunderstorms to deflect around the southeast and hammer the Midwest and Great Lakes instead.

Drought is steadily worsening from Texas to New Jersey amid the lack of rainfall. The worst deficits are building in Florida, where places like Tallahassee, Tampa, and Jacksonville have fallen behind by 5-10+ inches since last autumn.

A look at the percent of normal precipitation over the past 30 days does a fantastic job outlining the heat ridges over the southeast and the active storm track that's extended from Texas to Ontario.

Folks across the Midwest and Great Lakes have had it rough since the start of meteorological spring.

A seemingly endless stream of severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall have led to destructive tornadoes and damaging hailstorms throughout the region.

The outline of severe weather reports since March 1 looks more like something you'd expect to see in the middle of summer rather than the middle of spring. We'd usually find the worst thunderstorms around Mississippi and Alabama in April.

Bouts of severe flooding have accompanied the persistent rounds of rain and thunderstorms across the region. We've even seen extensive flooding over the border in portions of Ontario as the heavy rainfall combines with rapid snowmelt.

Graphics courtesy of the CPC

The Climate Prediction Center's monthly outlook for May isn't terribly optimistic for dramatic improvement for either extreme.

Forecasters expect enhanced odds of generally warmer-than-normal temperatures across the southern tier of the country, with no strong signal for either extreme rainfall or extreme dryness.

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Eastern U.S. to endure record-breaking heat wave this week

The spring of intense heat rolls on this week as a significant ridge of high pressure building over the eastern United States cranks up summer-like temperatures across the region.

Long spells of bright sunshine will help boost readings from the upper 80s to mid-90s at times.

The most widespread heat will arrive on Wednesday, which is when we'll see toasty temperatures stretch as far north as New York. Readings could even climb to near 80 degrees up in Boston and Albany.

We'll watch the ridge pull back a bit heading into the latter half of the week, focusing the summer-like air mass over the southeastern states. Long stretches of temperatures well above seasonal will blanket everyone from central Florida to southern Virginia during this heat wave.

This upcoming stretch will feature the warmest temperatures we've seen since early last autumn. Over the past 60 days, daytime highs in the 90s have remained relegated to portions of Florida and pockets of coastal Georgia and South Carolina.

Quite a few heat records may fall in the coming days.

According to the National Weather Service's latest forecast, 133 record highs and 262 record warm low temperatures are at risk of falling between Tuesday afternoon and Sunday morning.

This extended period of hot and dry weather is bad news for a region dealing with ever-worsening drought.

Last Tuesday's update of the United States Drought Monitor found that drought covered nearly 94% of the southeastern states, with one-third of the region enduring extreme or exceptional drought conditions. We can expect these numbers to look even worse in the next couple of weekly updates.

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