One page for the whole year — every count, every notable outbreak, every rating that matters. Updated as surveys land. Last updated: October 27, 2026.
2026 has been a loud tornado year that keeps refusing to produce a historic one. Through October 26, the National Weather Service has issued 2,841 tornado warnings — with a March that delivered the year's defining outbreaks, an April that made severe weather a national story for a week, a June that quietly became the biggest warning month of the year, a September that ran at triple its normal severe-weather volume, and an October in which a hurricane's remnants gave North Carolina its biggest tornado day in six years. And still: no EF5, anywhere — the strongest rated tornado of 2026 is an EF4, through Vance Air Force Base and Enid, Oklahoma on April 23.
January — 40 warnings · February — 89. A quiet winter start, activity confined mostly to the Gulf South's cool-season risk.
March — 349 warnings, and the year's defining month. Two outbreak sequences a week apart: March 5–7 produced the Union City, Michigan EF3 — Michigan's strongest tornado in nearly half a century — and March 10–12 produced a long-track EF3 from Kankakee–Aroma Park, Illinois into Lake Village–Roselawn, Indiana. Preliminary survey and storm-report records count 212 tornadoes in March, the most of any 2026 month to that point, though April (287) and June (344) later passed it. Our analysis of the March outbreak →
April — 639 warnings, severe weather as a national story. The April 20–27 severe convective storm week put severe-thunderstorm or tornado warnings over about 800 US counties in 26 states, and on April 23 produced the year's strongest tornado so far: an EF4 through Vance Air Force Base and Enid, Oklahoma. A week earlier, the April 13–14 outbreak had produced an EF3, at Hillsboro–Elroy, Wisconsin, and hundreds of hail reports. (Searching for an Omaha tornado that April? What the data actually shows →)
May — 249 warnings. Genuinely quiet by May standards — the climatological peak month underperformed its reputation this year.
June — 696 warnings, the year's peak. The biggest warning month of 2026 arrived on schedule, spread broadly across the Plains and Midwest rather than concentrated in a single historic outbreak.
July — 334 warnings, and Ohio's day. The month's signature event: the July 21 Ohio outbreak, where surveys by four NWS offices ultimately confirmed nine tornadoes — including two EF2s in Washington County confirmed days later, a textbook case of how tornado history gets written in drafts.
August — 227 warnings, and a record falls. On August 19, the NWS Pittsburgh office confirmed its 30th tornado of 2026 — an EF-0 in Armstrong County — breaking the office's all-time annual record of 29, set only in 2024. Two record years in three seasons for western Pennsylvania.
September — 120 warnings, in a month that shouldn't have them. The shoulder season didn't arrive: September 4–14 alone produced 25 tornado warnings, 14 tornado reports, and ten surveyed tornado paths from North Carolina to Minnesota and Nebraska, at roughly three times the window's normal severe-thunderstorm volume — plus, per widespread reporting, Detroit's first tornado since 1997 on September 3. On September 18 a supercell put an EF2 onto the Wasatch ridgeline above Fruit Heights, Utah, rated by the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City with 120 mph winds and a damage path up to 1.1 miles wide, a state record. And on September 29–30, moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Polo fed two rounds of tornado warnings on the southern Plains — the Texas Panhandle on the evening of the 29th, then low-topped supercells over central Kansas on the 30th, 26 tornado warnings in 24 hours — with NWS Wichita confirming several tornadoes in Barton, Russell and Lincoln counties and no significant damage or injuries.
October (through the 26th) — 98 warnings, and a hurricane's second act. The remnants of Hurricane Isaias crossed the Southeast on October 10–11 and produced 57 tornado warnings from Florida to North Carolina in three days. NWS surveys logged 24 tornado paths in the Damage Assessment Toolkit for October 9–11, five of them EF2, with no deaths and one injury: five tornadoes across eastern Georgia and southern South Carolina from NWS Charleston (none stronger than EF1), five more from NWS Columbia, including EF2s in Barnwell and Newberry counties, and 13 tornadoes in North Carolina on October 11, the state's most in a single day since August 3, 2020 — during the previous Hurricane Isaias. NWS Raleigh alone confirmed nine, including EF2s at Candor (115 mph, three walls of a community center collapsed) and Fayetteville, and NWS Newport/Morehead City tracked a long-lived EF2 for 24 miles through Duplin County. Then the Southwest took its turn: NWS Flagstaff issued 15 tornado warnings on October 21–23 as an unusually strong upper-level low for October crossed Arizona, and surveys confirmed two EF1s on October 21 — one through the Bradshaw Mountains south of Prescott (105 mph, 8 miles) and one through Heber-Overgaard (110 mph, 9.26 miles, one injury), with further EF0–EF1 tornadoes in New Mexico on October 24. The same storm system produced the hail and severe wind day of October 21 across Arizona.
Warning counts come from the NWS warning archive and are complete to the day. Confirmed tornadoes, ratings, and paths come from NWS ground surveys, which land days to weeks after each event — and second surveys sometimes find tornadoes the first pass missed, as July's Washington County EF2s showed. We never infer a rating from anything but a surveyed path. The deeper record behind this page — 22,400+ US tornado watch and warning records with footprints, ratings, and population exposure — is queryable by place, date, and severity, and the live tornado picture runs continuously.
The fall secondary season has already delivered its signature event in the Isaias-remnant outbreak; November is climatologically the last month with meaningful tornado risk, concentrated in the Gulf South and lower Mississippi Valley. 2026 has shown a pattern of refusing to go quiet when the calendar says it should. This page updates monthly, and immediately after any major outbreak.
The record behind the record
DisasterAWARE Historical Event Intelligence holds 22,400+ US tornado watch and warning records with ratings, footprints, and exposure — queryable by place, date, and severity.
Explore the historical record
Decades of reconstructed, verified catastrophes — browse the Historical Event Intelligence overview, or request sample data for your own portfolio.
How many tornadoes have there been in 2026?
Through October 26, 2026, the National Weather Service has issued 2,841 tornado warnings. Confirmed-tornado totals are always lower than warning counts and settle slowly as ground surveys complete — this page tracks both, updating monthly, and counts nothing as confirmed without an NWS survey.
Was there an EF5 tornado in 2026?
No. As of October 27, 2026, no tornado in 2026 has been rated EF5. The most recent EF5 in the United States remains the Enderlin, North Dakota tornado of June 20, 2025.
What is the strongest tornado of 2026?
The strongest rated tornado of 2026 so far is an EF4: the April 23 tornado through Vance Air Force Base and Enid, Oklahoma, rated by the National Weather Service in Norman. Before it, the year's strongest were EF3s, including Union City, Michigan, the state's strongest in nearly 50 years, and the long-track tornado from Kankakee–Aroma Park, Illinois into Lake Village–Roselawn, Indiana.
What was the biggest tornado outbreak of 2026?
By significant tornadoes, the March outbreak sequences; by breadth, the April 20–27 severe weather week, which put severe-thunderstorm or tornado warnings over about 800 US counties in 26 states and produced the year's strongest tornado, the Enid EF4; by single-state surprise, the July 21 Ohio outbreak's nine confirmed tornadoes; by one state's single-day count, the 13 North Carolina tornadoes of October 11 from the remnants of Hurricane Isaias, the most in a day there since 2020.
Which state broke a tornado record in 2026?
Western Pennsylvania: the NWS Pittsburgh office confirmed its 30th tornado of 2026 in August, breaking its all-time annual record of 29 — which had been set just two years earlier, in 2024.
Decision-ready intelligence for understanding what's happening, what is impacted, and what to do next. Global hazard, severe weather, catastrophe, and physical risk intelligence trusted by governments, enterprises, insurers, humanitarian organizations, and technology platforms worldwide.
Request DemoContact Us
