(WFRV) – On average, Wisconsin experiences 23 tornadoes statewide annually, with the activity peaking in June and July.
20 tornadoes have been confirmed this year from the four National Weather Service offices that divide up Wisconsin, marking it the fastest start to severe weather season over the last ten years.
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This number will likely climb as NWS Milwaukee and NWS Green Bay have more storm damage surveys to complete from last Thursday’s round of severe weather.
2025 and 2023 stand out as active starts to the severe weather season over the last ten years, however, they are quite an anomaly compared to previous years. More often than not, the severe season has started off fairly quiet, with the state seeing anywhere from zero to six tornadoes touch down before May 20.
After a quiet start to the season, how did the rest of those years pan out? Did the severe weather season lie low, or did it ramp up as we approached the peak months?
More often than not, based on the numbers, severe weather activity spiked fairly quickly in the months after May. Examples include 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2024, which saw between zero and four tornadoes up until May 20.
The flip side occurred in 2016 and 2020, as a quiet severe weather season was the norm from beginning to end.
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2023 is the only recent example when a season started with an uptick in activity, only to see the activity taper off. Sixteen tornadoes touched down in the first five months of the year, followed by just five twisters during the peak months of the season.
Will the 2025 severe weather season be a repeat of 2023 and taper off during the peak months of the year? Or are we destined for another chase at the statewide record of 62 tornadoes in a calendar year set back in 2005? That answer remains to be seen.
