This page documents all tornadoes confirmed by various weather forecast offices of the National Weather Service in the United States for April 2024. Tornado counts are considered preliminary until final publication in the database of the National Centers for Environmental Information. Based on the 1991âÂÂ2020 average, about 155 tornadoes occur in the United States in April. Activity also tends to spread northward and westward in April compared to the cooler winter months and the Midwest and Great Plains tend to see increased activity, although the relative maxima remain in the southern states.
Following the below-average March, tornadic activity increased dramatically in the United States in April. Most of the activity occurred during four large outbreaks that produced 86, 37, 50, and 164 tornadoes, respectively, during the month. The final outbreak of the month was the most destructive, producing several intense tornadoes across the Central Plains, including violent EF4 tornadoes in Nebraska and Oklahoma. April also featured a rare EF0 tornado in Alaska during the middle of the month. As a result, the month was very active with 357 tornadoes, more than double the average for the month and the second most on record in April behind the extraordinarily active April 2011, which had 780 tornadoes.
Several factors led to the record-breaking activity during the month, which was somewhat unusual given that past research has shown that tornado alley has been shifting eastward in recent years due to climate change increasing temperatures across the Great Plains, which led to stronger capping inversions. However, at the beginning of April, an ongoing El Niño caused temperatures across the Plains and Midwestern United States to be cooler than normal. Meanwhile, record-breaking heat waves in Texas and Mexico led to a large temperature contrast between the two areas. This began to change in April, however, when the El Niño began to weaken. This coupled with a much warmer than normal Gulf of Mexico allowed the hot, moist air to impinge upon the cool, dry air. This led to the jet stream being stronger the normal and allowed for much stronger wind shear environments to be in place. Instability was also higher due to this contrast of air masses. This especially became apparent at the end of April when the environmental setup triggered a very large and devastating outbreak across the Central Plains and the Midwest. Tornadic activity would only increase after April and eventually went into overdrive throughout the month of May.