Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard

Tornadoes

Storms -- tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, and severe convective storms combined -- account for the largest share of both global weather/climate economic losses (about 56%) and deaths (about 27%), 1980-2025 (see Loss Normalization). US tornado counts here come from NCEI Storm Events (the only rigorous long tornado record outside Europe's ESWD), paired with global convective instability (CAPE, from ARCO-ERA5) as a worldwide proxy for severe-thunderstorm-favorable conditions. The US accounts for roughly 75% of the world's known tornadoes, the basis for using it as the global severe-convective-storm indicator here.

Variables on this page

Every variable below is evaluated over a full reliable-trend window against the combined "detected change" standard (IPCC's likelihood criterion plus a magnitude-vs-variability check -- see the homepage or Methodology for the full definitions). Shown as alternative ways of characterizing this same phenomenon -- some from independent sources, others a different construction on the same underlying data (each variable's note says which).

No unified global tornado database exists — the US (NCEI Storm Events, shown above) and Europe (ESWD) hold the only regions with a rigorous long tornado record, and NOAA/NSSL's international tornado climatology puts the US at roughly 75% of the world's known tornadoes (Canada adds another ~5%, so North America accounts for about 80%). That concentration reflects the Great Plains/Midwest's unmatched combination of moist Gulf of Mexico air, dry continental air aloft, and jet-stream wind shear — not an artifact of the US simply reporting more thoroughly than everywhere else. Because a true global tornado count isn't available, the panel below uses convective instability (CAPE) as the best available global proxy for severe-thunderstorm-favorable conditions, not a tornado count itself.