When is tornado season?

Question

I am keen to travel to Oklahoma City, Fort Worth and Little Rock in January 2009. I am seeing lots of news stories revolving (sorry about the pun) around twisters at the moment. Is there a season for that sort of weather or can it be all year? I am travelling from Australia. The closest to twisters we get is cyclones and that is usually only summer time.

Answer 1

Tornado season usually runs from mid March thru August, and can even go into late September. You need warm air masses, and cold storm fronts with wind shear. So basically, Spring - Summer.

Answer 2

Normally in OK they are active from March through end of May and then again during the early falls months.  Tornadoes can occur at any time of the year though.  Here is a list of tornado occurrences by month from 1950-2006:

January:  12

February:  45

March:  227

April:  605

May:  1131

June:  476

July:  109

August:  80

September:  115

October:  125

November:  82

December:  22

Answer 3

Hopefully you will be in town for the stock show in Fort Worth.

It gets chilly and rains, but I can't remember a tornado in the past 25 years during this time of year.  Also, tornadoes tend to be great news stories (lovely pictures and quotes from the locals " Yes'um officer, it sounded like a freight train and just picked up that mobile home and wrapped it around that cow.  Ain't nothin' left but itty bitty pieces and I thought I was fixin to die")   Yes they can get bad and cause damage, but we have only had five deaths from tornadoes in the entire history of Fort Worth and they were during the tornado that hit downtown this decade.  Not too bad of odds.

http://www.fwssr.com/

Answer 4

Tornadoes are most common in spring time,  from about late March to about June.    The strongest storms occur when cold canadian air clashes with warm surface temperatures.