Illinois Has Surprisingly Become the Tornado Capital of America

Normally, being #1 at something is a good thing. That's not true in this case. Surprisingly, Illinois has become the tornado capital of America and the numbers so far in 2023 prove that point.

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I saw many media outlets including Advantage News and WCIA mention that Illinois has double the normal number of tornado touchdowns so far in 2023 compared to a normal year. Patch says that the number of twisters in the Land of Lincoln has taken such a jump that as of this writing, Illinois has experienced the most tornadoes this year than any other state.

Welcome to the new unofficial tornado capital of the United States.

This uptick of tornado activity in Illinois really isn't that unexpected

As I shared a few weeks ago, experts had already alerted us that what has historically been thought of as tornado alley was now moving. The new area where tornadoes are more common now includes most of Missouri and Illinois instead of the traditional places you expect in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Not only are we seeing more tornadoes now in Illinois, we're even seeing them in the metro parts of Chicago like the one that touched down near O'Hare International Airport last week.

Scientists can debate whether this is another sign of ongoing climate change, but at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is that tornadoes are now a more frequent event in our lives and no longer the exception. Times they are changing...even in the skies.