Curious about why Iowa and Nebraska as well as Oklahoma getting hit so hard this year

[Brian R.]

Not really sure where to post this... so here it goes.

After last Friday's insane tornado outbreak in Iowa and Nebraska, it appears that once again basically the same hard hit areas are under the gun for severe storms again today. Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma has always seemed to be a "tornado magnet" but I am wondering what has changed this year to make them not only at risk for tornadoes, but significant tornadoes? I am in the Chicago metro area, and told most of my friends to be alert for a rather violent spring due to the abnormally mild and snow free winter we had.... not sure how last winter was in Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma... but wondering if the lack of snowfall and extreme cold in the midwest is playing a role in the insane tornado outbreak last Friday and possibly tornadoes again today in Iowa region.

On the other hand, we all know that weather manipulation has been going on for some time, is this possibly caused by excessive weather manipulation and cloud seeding? I sure hope it is not, but with the state of things going on one needs to wonder......

 

[JamesCaruso]

These are all tornado alley states, so not unusual at all, and we’re just talking about a handful of events - coincidence, not correlation.

Having said that, I have found in certain years it seems, anecdotally, that the same general areas take repeated hits from storms. Last year in northeastern NM is an example.

@Boris Konon ’s post in
Post in thread '2024-04-26 EVENT: IA/NE/KS/MO/OK' just happens to speak to a couple of points relevant here. One is recency bias, which your perception may be partially attributable to. But he also writes about how a given pattern can indeed potentially explain some of this.
2024-04-26 EVENT: IA/NE/KS/MO/OK

 

[Brian R.]

Thank you for that. was a very well written piece about the issue I was thinking about. Maybe it just seems odd that the same areas just a few days apart. hopefully today is much quieter for all who are affected.

 

[Boris Konon]

These are all tornado alley states, so not unusual at all, and we’re just talking about a handful of events - coincidence, not correlation.

Having said that, I have found in certain years it seems, anecdotally, that the same general areas take repeated hits from storms. Last year in northeastern NM is an example.

@Boris Konon ’s post in
Post in thread '2024-04-26 EVENT: IA/NE/KS/MO/OK' just happens to speak to a couple of points relevant here. One is recency bias, which your perception may be partially attributable to. But he also writes about how a given pattern can indeed potentially explain some of this.
2024-04-26 EVENT: IA/NE/KS/MO/OK

And of note prior to last Friday, there was a distinct dearth of tornadoes in traditional tornado alley. The states by far leading the way were OH with 43 and IL with 35 tornadoes so far this year. FL was #3 was 34. However, none of the events in these states stood our nearly as much as last Friday and Saturday, probably b/c Friday's tornadoes were so photogenic across the board, which will impress people *far* more than just poor-visibility tornado video or people just describing them.

It has been noted that sometimes in strong El Nino winters, the subsequent tornado season can be more active east of traditional tornado alley, esp. earlier on in the spring. Yes, tornado climo is higher east (southeast) of tornado alley earlier in the spring to begin with, but OH having so many early on sticks out as quite the anomaly for so far N and E!

Also, when you really look at it, the areas affected last Friday and Saturday, it was not much of a location anomaly for the time of year, as we are almost at the peak climo month for tornado activity net-net across the U.S. Given the active subtropical jet and residual warmth from strong El Nino, what happened in the last week and so far this year for U.S. tornado activity is not that deviant. Put it another way, a mild winter across much of CONUS due to strong El Nino, odds are higher you will see more tornadoes earlier on and in places that normally don't see much activity in the cool season, again going back to OH for its very active year so far.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Nebraska and Iowa getting hit hard is like flipping heads 4 times in a row on a toss of a fair coin - I see it as mostly random/happenstance/coincidence. There is very unlikely to be any legitimate physical signal aligning for the same regions to be under threat 4 days apart.

It happens. But that doesn't mean there's something underlying it. Meteorology is not a teleological science, if you ask me.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

This year seems very reminiscent of the 2011 chase season.

Very violent, multi-vortex, mile wide tornadoes ran roughshod all over Alabama (Tuscaloosa), Oklahoma (numerous small towns), Missouri (Joplin) causing enormous amounts of damage.

 

[William Monfredo]

I agree Hannah. Personal pre-season prediction was 2024 would be similar to 2011 due to the transition from El Niño to (presumably) La Niña. This important transitional-state, not simply neutral, is shown by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) moving negative to positive, and it provides an important background for high-intensity tornado-seasons in the Southern Low Plains and mid-South regions. (We've usually got time lags of several months for the widely-spaced, simultaneously occurring weather anomalies, teleconnections, coming out of winter.)
I think of a regression equation with multiple, competing variables with different coefficients in front where various pieces of the puzzle make contributions to the whole. So of course, no magic bullet, no one size fits all, but look at a multi-month running mean of the SOI & some of the big tornado springs like 1974 & 2011. Years ago, I discussed this with Patrick Marsh at SPC, and we both found it intriguing.