Missouri’s severe weather prompting questions about tornado alley

(Missourinet) — Recent severe weather in Missouri and points east is reigniting questions about the location of tornado alley. Missouri State Climatologist Zack Leasor says some scientists think it’s shifted east of Oklahoma and Texas. “And that kind of puts Missouri in a weird spot where we’re right in the middle of where we’ve seen this kind of shifting pattern of where the more frequent tornado activity is.”

Leasor says, however, there’s no consistent trend to prove tornado alley has shifted. He also notes radar has improved greatly and forecasters are detecting more tornadoes than they were able to find in the past, and says he’s not convinced after looking at data from the last 30 years. “And there is just not much of a trend at all. There’s a lot of year to year variability. It really doesn’t even depend on if it was a warm year or a cold year for example, it’s just kind of the random nature of that severe weather. So we don’t see a lot of clear trends yet with that data.”

He says as far as more tornadoes: “Our radars are getting better and there were probably tornadoes 20 years ago that we were not warned about that we would be today by that new technology.” Missouri typically gets 48-tornadoes per year. SOQ.

Missouri averages 13 tornadoes in May, 6 in June, and 2 in July.