How far back does the US tornado record go?

To 1950. The Storm Prediction Center's database begins that year and holds one row per tornado: where it touched down and lifted, its Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating, path length and width, deaths, injuries, damage and the counties it crossed. Tornadoes before 1950 are not in it. Counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so the number of weak tornadoes in the 1950s is lower than it would be today, while violent tornadoes were always noticed.

What is the difference between the F scale and the EF scale?

The United States rated tornadoes on Ted Fujita's F scale until 31 January 2007 and on the Enhanced Fujita scale from 1 February 2007. Both run from 0 to 5 and both are ratings of damage, not measurements of wind; the EF scale attaches a wind range to each degree of damage for twenty-eight kinds of structure and tree, which lowered the winds associated with the top of the scale.

Why is a tornado listed under the state it touched down in?

A tornado that crosses a state line is one tornado, and the database records it once, under the state where it began, with the whole track's length, deaths and damage. Its page is filed there, and the states it ran into list it separately as having crossed in, so it is never counted twice.

Why does this year have fewer tornadoes than last year?

The official database for a year is compiled from the local damage surveys and published the following spring, so the current year shows preliminary storm reports instead. Those come in as they are phoned and typed, one tornado can be reported twice from two places, and they carry no rating, path length or damage.

Tornadoes

Tornadoes in the United States

Every tornado in the official record since 1950: 73,458 of them, with the track each one took, its rating, path length and width, and the people it killed and injured. 6,341 deaths and 99,311 injuries in 76 years, 656 tornadoes rated F4 or EF4 and above, 60 rated F5 or EF5.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The United States rated tornadoes on Ted Fujita’s F scale until 31 January 2007 and on the Enhanced Fujita scale after it. Both run from 0 to 5, and both rate the damage rather than measure the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

F0 / EF040 to 72 mph on the F scale, 65 to 85 mph on the EF scale
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F1 / EF173 to 112 mph on the F scale, 86 to 110 mph on the EF scale
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2 / EF2113 to 157 mph on the F scale, 111 to 135 mph on the EF scale
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3 / EF3158 to 206 mph on the F scale, 136 to 165 mph on the EF scale
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4 / EF4207 to 260 mph on the F scale, 166 to 200 mph on the EF scale
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5 / EF5261 to 318 mph on the F scale, over 200 mph on the EF scale
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

By state

Every state, with the tornadoes on record there since 1950. Each state page adds its worst, its counties and every year.

State	Tornadoes	Deaths	Injuries	F4 and above	F5
Texas	9,610	609	9829	57	6
Kansas	4,582	196	2697	44	6
Oklahoma	4,484	452	6159	61	8
Florida	3,761	175	3410	2
Nebraska	3,203	56	1220	33	1
Illinois	3,108	232	4655	32	2
Iowa	3,079	98	2285	49	6
Mississippi	2,854	505	6760	35	4
Alabama	2,681	679	8742	42	7
Missouri	2,656	368	4108	35	1
Louisiana	2,482	232	3463	11	1
Colorado	2,476	5	290
Minnesota	2,193	98	1976	23	2
Arkansas	2,090	415	5554	31
Georgia	1,977	237	4173	11
South Dakota	1,945	17	495	10	1
North Dakota	1,737	31	366	14	3
Indiana	1,725	273	4629	28	2
Wisconsin	1,596	101	1682	20	3
North Carolina	1,533	124	2435	7
Tennessee	1,447	432	5124	29	1
Ohio	1,381	229	4762	18	3
Kentucky	1,223	214	3448	19	1
South Carolina	1,217	71	1758	11
Michigan	1,141	222	3064	17	2
Pennsylvania	982	49	1050	6
Virginia	828	38	949	2
Wyoming	749	4	115	1
New Mexico	678	4	161
New York	535	35	354	2
California	486		97
Montana	444	4	32	1
Maryland	415	9	326	1
Arizona	302	3	152
Idaho	226		11
Massachusetts	192	105	1526	2
New Jersey	188	1	74
West Virginia	164	2	109
Utah	142	1	98
Oregon	135	6	305
Maine	134	1	20
Washington	134		3
Connecticut	125	4	703	2
New Hampshire	99	1	30
Nevada	96		2
Delaware	74	3	66
Vermont	49		12
Hawaii	41		6
Puerto Rico	33		1
Rhode Island	17		24
Alaska	5
District of Columbia	3		1
U.S. Virgin Islands	1

The deadliest

Every F5 and EF5

60 tornadoes have been rated at the top of the scale since 1950. The last one was June 20, 2025.

The longest paths

Before the 1970s a family of tornadoes from one supercell was often recorded as a single long track, so the oldest entries here are longer than any one tornado was.

The widest

The costliest

Property damage as the survey recorded it, in the dollars of the year it happened.

Every year

2020s

2020 1,090 2021 1,328 2022 1,167 2023 1,321 2024 1,805 2025 1,383

2010s

2010 1,302 2011 1,704 2012 948 2013 916 2014 928 2015 1,182 2016 976 2017 1,442 2018 1,138 2019 1,534

2000s

2000 1,075 2001 1,215 2002 934 2003 1,374 2004 1,817 2005 1,263 2006 1,103 2007 1,132 2008 1,704 2009 1,162

1990s

1990 1,133 1991 1,132 1992 1,297 1993 1,172 1994 1,082 1995 1,237 1996 1,173 1997 1,148 1998 1,424 1999 1,339

1980s

1980 866 1981 782 1982 1,047 1983 930 1984 907 1985 684 1986 765 1987 656 1988 702 1989 856

1970s

1970 653 1971 889 1972 741 1973 1,102 1974 945 1975 919 1976 834 1977 852 1978 789 1979 855

1960s

1960 616 1961 697 1962 657 1963 463 1964 704 1965 897 1966 585 1967 927 1968 657 1969 608

1950s

1950 201 1951 260 1952 240 1953 421 1954 550 1955 591 1956 504 1957 858 1958 564 1959 604

Nearby

Some of these tornadoes have a profile of their own: the meteorology, the damage survey, the aftermath, and the radar record you can replay scan by scan.

The profiles The live radar Storm Lab Warnings in force now The radar archive, back to 1991

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

What is here

The record: The Storm Prediction Center's tornado database, 1950 to last year: one page for every tornado, with the track drawn on a map, the rating, the path, the counties, the casualties and the damage. Index pages by country, state and year.
And what stood around it: For each tornado, as far as the archives reach: the Weather Service's own narrative and damage survey, the warning in force over the touchdown point and how many minutes of lead time it gave, the Storm Prediction Center's outlook that afternoon, the radiosonde before and after with the same analysis Storm Lab runs, the surface observations nearby, the local storm reports, and a link into the Level II radar archive at the minute it was on the ground.
In depth: A few tornadoes have a full profile: the meteorology, the radar record, the survey and the aftermath, written and sourced. See the profiles.

Live radar · The radar archive · Warnings in force now · Storm Lab