2022 NJ Tornado Activity Expected To Be High: See Forecast

NEW JERSEY — More than a dozen people have already been killed in the U.S. in what is already shaping up to be an active 2022 tornado season. East coast states like New Jersey are slated to see a particularly high few months of severe weather activity coming up, according to experts.

In fact, April is the most active month of the three-month cycle when tornadic activity is the highest, according to AccuWeather. The private weather company expects active weather systems to not only spin up more twisters and severe storms than in previous years, but also in areas outside the traditional “Tornado Alley.”

There may be fewer tornadoes over a larger area of the country in May, but severe storms are expected to be concentrated in the Midwest, and perhaps “an event or two in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said.

"A couple of severe events are possible in the Northeast in May, with the greatest threat of straight-line wind damage rather than tornadoes," Pastelok added.

Storms will also begin to shift eastward in April, although how far east could depend on factors such as expanding drought conditions and a change in the jet stream. According to a long-range forecast map from AccuWeather, east coast states like Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey will experience a high risk of severe weather in May.

There's also a high chance for a particularly active hurricane season, AccuWeather forecasters said, noting that a season comparable to 2021's prolific record is in store. Notably, last year Hurricane Ida made landfall in September in New Jersey, claiming the lives of 23 Garden State residents, leveling at least 20 homes and accounting for at least three tornadoes. Read more: 2022 Hurricane Season In NJ: What To Know

Overall, AccuWeather forecasts a 2022 tornado season at least as active and potentially more violent than in 2021. Last year, there were 1,376 confirmed tornados — an increase of 301 from 2020, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tornados killed 100 people in 2021, more than in any year since 2011, NOAA data shows.

The remainder of April should be “very active” for tornadoes, Pastelok said. The weather company’s meteorologists forecast between 200 and 275 tornadoes in April, an increase from 73 confirmed tornadoes in 2021. About 155 tornadoes are spawned in a typical April, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

Tornadoes form when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air during thunderstorms. These conditions cause spinning within thunderclouds, and the spinning currents can drop down from a cloud and become a twister.

The 2022 tornado season is off to an active, deadly start with at least 210 confirmed twisters so far. They include an Iowa tornado that killed seven people in early March. It was an EF4 tornado, the second-most intense tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

If the forecast bears out, tornado activity will slow in May. AccuWeather forecasts between 140 and 190 tornadoes to be spawned during the month, below both the confirmed storm total of 289 in 2021 and the monthly average of 276 confirmed storms, according to NOAA data.

• Related: Did Climate Change Fuel Deadly Twister? Probably, Scientists Say

AccuWeather said the shift eastward already is occurring, affected both by continued drought conditions in the Southwest and a change in the jetstream, lowering the risk in Tornado Alley, a wide swath extending north from the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts to the Dakotas. But that doesn’t mean tornadoes won’t happen in these states, the forecast emphasized.