Tornado Watches in the United States
7,163 tornado watches since 1986. Each alert counts once, however many counties it covered. The archive of tornado watches reaches back to 1997.
Tornado Watches by state
Each state shaded by its count. Tap a state for its own archive.
- Tornado Watches
- 7,163
- Busiest year
- 2008406 tornado watches
- Average year
- 239over 30 years on file
- Busiest day
- April 27, 201120 tornado watches
Over time
By year
Watches are counted from 1997, when the Storm Prediction Center archive begins.
By month of the year
By state
Every state and territory, with the alerts that covered any part of it. Each state’s page lists every one of them.
- Texas1,438
- Mississippi1,084
- Missouri1,011
- Alabama1,008
- Arkansas979
- Louisiana976
- Oklahoma961
- Georgia880
- Florida873
- Kansas782
- Illinois712
- Tennessee642
- Nebraska604
- Iowa588
- Kentucky578
- Indiana529
- North Carolina513
- South Carolina414
- Minnesota412
- South Dakota364
- Virginia346
- Wisconsin299
- Ohio267
- Colorado221
- North Dakota203
- West Virginia178
- Maryland169
- Michigan168
- Pennsylvania162
- Wyoming110
- New Mexico90
- New York87
- Montana87
- New Jersey79
- Delaware67
- District of Columbia56
- Connecticut47
- Massachusetts41
- Vermont27
- Rhode Island17
The busiest days
Days with the most alerts issued, by UTC date.
Nearby
Sources
National Weather Service watches, warnings, advisories and statements from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's VTEC archive, which reconstructs tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and marine warnings back to 1986 from the NWS text archive. Storm Prediction Center watches and mesoscale discussions from SPC's archive through the Mesonet. County centers from the US Census Bureau. Rebuilt daily.