Following an intense week of storms that produced multiple tornadoes, an examination of data shows Illinois has recorded more tornadoes than any other state this year.
And this isn’t the first time.
In the most recent wave, multiple confirmed tornadoes were reported in Streator and Dwight, sparking warnings in LaSalle, Grundy and Kankakee counties. As of Friday, crews were still assessing damage following the storms.
Illinois has logged the highest number of confirmed tornadoes so far in 2026, according to National Weather Service data.
In all, 133 tornadoes have been recorded so far this year in Illinois – the most of any state by a significant margin. Mississippi ranks second with 82.
Illinois also saw the most tornadoes last year at 129, narrowly ahead of Texas, which experienced 127.
The developments come as climate change shifts tornado alley and drives more tornado outbreaks.
Tornado alley has moved east over the past few decades, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization.
Fewer tornadoes have been recorded in Texas and Oklahoma, and more have occurred along the Mississippi River and further north into areas such as Illinois and Wisconsin.
“That’s getting into a higher vulnerability region. Bigger cities are in the path of these storms. You also have a higher density of manufactured housing as you get into a lot of these regions. So, if people think I don’t live in tornado alley, I don’t need to worry about tornadoes and suddenly they’re in the path of more frequent tornado events, that can catch a lot of people off guard,” Kathryn Prociv, an NBC News senior meteorologist, said in a 2024 interview.
Climate Central reported the frequency of days favorable for tornadoes has increased significantly in parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana since 1979. As temperatures rise, those conditions are expected to become more common.
A 2023 study entitled “The Future of Supercells in the United States” suggested continued warming could fuel an increase in supercells beyond the traditional “tornado season.”
As tornado activity increases, Prociv also noted the growing danger of more tornadoes happening at night and during the winter – when people aren’t thinking much about severe weather.
“As we have this trend of warming, think weather doesn’t care what the calendar say. As long as the atmosphere looks like spring, smells like spring, feels like spring, it could produce spring-like weather, which could be in the form of tornadoes,” she stated.
