Tennessee tornado season is winding down

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Well, June is just days away and that will mark the end of tornado season in Tennessee. Meteorologist Alex Libby is here now with a look at how this year compared to 2025. Alex. Yeah, Bob. This year much quieter than 2025. You can see here in Middle Tennessee, we've seen four tornadoes so far in 2026. Now, that's not very many and we are ending our most active time of year for tornadoes. Last year for the whole year, we had 28. We average 10 tornadoes each year here in Middle Tennessee. So, here is an average number of tornadoes that the state of Tennessee sees each month.

[00:00:35]March, April, May by far the most active for tornadoes. We see on average seven tornadoes in the whole state in April.

[00:00:43]But, look at that drop off between May and June. And yes, June is just days away and that means a prolonged period June through October where tornadoes are very, very rare. Now, why are they so common in the spring and rare in the summer and early fall? Well, it has to do with the ingredients needed for a tornado. We typically have all of them in place in spring. We have half of them in winter. We're just missing usually that moisture and that humidity and instability. And then in the summer, we have the humid and instability, but we're missing all of that wind. We don't see much wind in the summer because the jet stream moves to the north. So, if you are anxious about tornadoes, you can, you know, sleep easier for the next few months until our secondary season arrives late in the fall. We'll be right back after the break.