Some Perspective On Our 2011 Tornado Season

You don't need me to tell you that 2011 was a very active tornado year for the country as a whole.  Locally, we experienced plenty of activity and I thought I would take some time to put our season in perspective. 

One way to put our year in context is to compare it to active years in other states.  How active was our year relative to the most active years elsewhere?  Since states vary in size, let's consider the record number of tornadoes per 10,000 square miles (land) for some other states.  A few of these may surprise you.

Delaware:  30.71 (1992)

Rhode Island:  28.71 (1986)

South Carolina:  28.56 (2004)

Maryland:  24.56 (1995)

Mississippi:  23.24 (2008)

Kansas:  22.86 (2008)

Illinois:  22.13 (2006)

Iowa:  21.48 (2008)

Florida:  21.33 (1997)

Oklahoma:  21.12 (1999)

Virginia:  20.96 (2004)

Arkansas:  20.55 (1999)

Indiana:  20.07 (2011)

Alabama:  18.52 (2008)

Louisiana:  18.14 (1992, 2008)

Massachusetts:  15.31 (1958)

Ohio:  14.90 (1992)

Missouri:  14.66 (2006)

Nebraska:  14.44 (2004)

Minnesota:  14.19 (2010)

Although I don't have the finalized 2011 numbers for other states, it is clear that we were not the only state to experience a record amount of activity so this list will need some modification in the future.

Knowing that we broke our yearly record with 72 tornadoes, it should not be a surprise that there were some other firsts in 2011.  Here are a few:

-58 tornadoes in the 5 week period from 4/19 through 5/25

-2 consecutive months with at least 25 tornadoes (April/May)

-29 tornadoes on April 19-20, the biggest April outbreak on record

-9 tornadoes in Dubois county, the most for any Indiana county in one year

Other noteworthy achievements:

-6 tornadoes on February 28, the second biggest February outbreak on record

-22 tornadoes on May 25, the second biggest May outbreak and overall fourth biggest outbreak on record

-33 tornadoes in April, the second most on record for any month

-16 tornado days, the fourth most on record