State of the Chase Season 2026

[Jason N]

One of the things I noticed this year in Alaska was that for the first time in at least 5 -7 years, all of the Turnagain arm and most of the cook inlet was completely frozen. The first few months of 2026 Ice year were above 2025's and just slightly below the 10yr mean but that's come down a bit in the last month. probably doesn't mean a ton, just an interesting side note.

 

[William Monfredo]

A good sign for the upcoming chase days this week...
a tornado reported in California Sunday associated with the western trough that will later eject into the Plains.
Hopefully, that's not too much hype.

 

[JamesCaruso]

While it has been an interesting stretch in the Midwest, I think it’s fair to say the Southern Plains has been a disappointment this past week, squandering several days of moisture and southwest flow, with a sloshing dryline that unfortunately seemed to be oriented more SW-NE than N-S, with mid/upper flow and shear vectors parallel to the dryline. Hard to believe that at this time last week I was thinking of heading out there, mostly just for last weekend, and I’m sure glad I saved my time and money.

That said, tomorrow (Friday 4/17) looks excellent, but no matter how good it turns out to be, it probably won’t salvage the week relative to initial expectations.

Now personally I’ll be hoping that my trip (day after Mothers’ Day) is favorably timed, allowing a couple weeks of quiet and then turning “due” for an active stretch again. I know it doesn’t quite work that way, but I would be really nervous about May turning quiet if the rest of April was active.

 

[William Monfredo]

Illinois is crushing it for tornadoes so far in 2026!
While ranked only 25th out of the 50 states for area in square miles,
the "Land of Lincoln" ranks # 1 in the frequency of tornado reports year-to-date.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Well obviously my post about 4/17 in the Southern Plains didn’t age well, but another OK crapfest just solidifies the point that the week fell far short of expectations. If this had been in my May/June chasing window and I was debating whether to start or delay my trip, I most certainly would have gone out there based on the big picture ingredients of Southwest flow and adequate moisture. But it would have been a complete waste.

Looks like things heat up again late next week, which selfishly I’d rather *not* see at this point, because in my view, right or wrong, anecdotal or not, the more that happens early the less happens later!

 

[Luke Penney]

Illinois is crushing it for tornadoes so far in 2026!
While ranked only 25th out of the 50 states for area in square miles,
the "Land of Lincoln" ranks # 1 in the frequency of tornado reports year-to-date.

I've been generally under the impression that this year has been much more active than usual for the upper Midwest (especially given how early it is), but I got curious enough to look at some actual statistics. I got data averages from https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/ and compared it against de-duplicated tornado reports from the SPC for this past week (which I fully expect to increase as damage assessments are done).

(One note of statistical caution: This compares de-duplicated tornado reports against tornadoes, so I don't think it's quite an apples-to-apples comparison.)

Illinois has 9 tornado reports so far for this week, matching their tornado average of 9 for all of April.
Iowa had 10 this week, compared to 8 in their average April.
Minnesota had 8 tornado reports, compared to their average 1 tornado in April (and their average 1 tornado for all of January through April).
But the real winner(?) is Wisconsin: 23 tornado reports so far for the past week, compared with their 30-year average of having 24 tornadoes across the entire year.

Moreover, this doesn't include the multiple other significant events earlier this year. At some point, I might go back and compare January through April against states' average years using https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/summary/, after there's been more time for the data to populate there.

 

[John Farley]

I've been generally under the impression that this year has been much more active than usual for the upper Midwest (especially given how early it is), but I got curious enough to look at some actual statistics. I got data averages from https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/ and compared it against de-duplicated tornado reports from the SPC for this past week (which I fully expect to increase as damage assessments are done).

(One note of statistical caution: This compares de-duplicated tornado reports against tornadoes, so I don't think it's quite an apples-to-apples comparison.)

Illinois has 9 tornado reports so far for this week, matching their tornado average of 9 for all of April.
Iowa had 10 this week, compared to 8 in their average April.
Minnesota had 8 tornado reports, compared to their average 1 tornado in April (and their average 1 tornado for all of January through April).
But the real winner(?) is Wisconsin: 23 tornado reports so far for the past week, compared with their 30-year average of having 24 tornadoes across the entire year.

Moreover, this doesn't include the multiple other significant events earlier this year. At some point, I might go back and compare January through April against states' average years using https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/summary/, after there's been more time for the data to populate there.

I think if you look at the whole month, Illinois would be more above the April average, but one thing you have to realize about Illinois is its long north-south extent. In Cairo at the southern tip, you are at least as close to New Orleans as you are to Chicago. April tornadoes are not particularly unusual in the southern half of Illinois, but they are farther north. So I would guess the northern half is more above average than the state as a whole. Overall, I would say people who are in a position to chase in the Upper Midwest are probably having a pretty good early season. There have been a number of photogenic tornadoes in that region this year, including yesterday.

 

[Luke Penney]

Yes, in https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/summary/ I see nineteen April tornado reports so far for Illinois (and all them central or north Illinois).

 

[William Monfredo]

...this year has been much more active than usual for the upper Midwest (especially given how early it is)...

I've been thinking the same thing for at least a couple weeks now. Here we are in mid-April...
with about five times as many tornado reports for Illinois than Texas, which is almost five times as big.

A popular & freshly-degreed meteorologist over the last year (the one with a white-headphone-wearing sidekick )
enthusiastically validated our notion just a couple days ago on YouTube when he announced twice, "2026...Year of the Midwest."