SCOTT ROBERTS
KSStorm.Info
The 2023 severe weather season in Kansas could be best described in one phrase: drawn out. This was something we forecasted last season and was due in large part to the transition from a La Niña (cooling of the waters in the Equatorial Pacific) to a brief neutral period (neither warm nor cool waters) to a burgeoning El Niño in the same region.
Overall, it was another muted tornado season for Kansas, with 44 occurring. That number is a staggering 46.6% lower than the 30-year average of 81. Nine of the 44 (or roughly 20.45%) tornadoes last season came from Chase County, including two EF-2 tornadoes during a localized tornado event on the evening of April 19.
Putting it all together, the four years from 2020-23 is the 19th the quietest tornado period for Kansas since the 1950s, with 155 tornadoes documented. The quietest period? You have to go back to the four years from 1975-1978, when only 77 tornadoes were reported.
By contrast, the four-year stretch from 2005-2008 was the busiest for Kansas, with 563 twisters reported, including the infamous Greensburg tornado.
Want an even more impressive stat to highlight the quiet tornado period in our state?
It has been 2,840 days since the last time Kansas witnessed 20 or more tornadoes in a calendar day. On May 24, 2016 (the infamous “Dodge City Day”,) 34 twisters touched down in a four-and-a-half-hour tornado outbreak across southwest Kansas.
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