Decaying El Niño linked to tornadoes

By Jana Lesak Houser, The Ohio State University Dozens of tornadoes hit the central U.S. April 26-28, 2024, tearing through suburbs and small towns and damaging hundreds of homes from Oklahoma to Nebraska and Iowa. Spring is tornado season in the U.S., but the tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa were quite a bit farther north and east of what would be typical for tornadoes in late April, when tornado activity is more common in Oklahoma and Texas. The outbreak did fit another pattern for severe weather events, however, that occur as the atmosphere transitions out of El Niño. And this is exactly what was happening in late April. I study tornadoes and the conditions under which they form. Here’s how these storm systems develop and what El Niño has to do with it. Preliminary reports of tornadoes and hail during severe storms on April 26, 2024, collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center. NOAA Preliminary reports of tornadoes and hail on April 27, 2024, collected by the Storm Prediction Center. NOAA. The right conditions for a tornado Two basic conditions are required to produce the rotating supercell thunderstorms that are capable of generating tornadoes: Warm moist...