By Sarah Elbeshbishi
Mountain State Spotlight

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A record number of tornadoes have ripped through West Virginia this year, leaving behind a trail of damage, as states east of the Mississippi River experience tornadoes more frequently in part due to climate change.  

With 18 tornadoes, 2024 has been West Virginia’s most active season since 1998, when 14 tornadoes touched down in the state. Most of the recorded tornadoes this year occurred during the destructive April 2 storm, which hit communities across Cabell, Kanawha and Fayette counties.

Despite the record high, no definite conclusions can be drawn from just this one year. However, it is consistent with shifting trends in tornadic activity — partly due to climate change —  which suggests that West Virginia could continue to see more and stronger tornadoes. 

Eastern states, including West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, are seeing a greater likelihood of tornadoes, according to Victor Gensini, an associate professor in the earth, atmosphere and environment department at Northern Illinois University. 

“We’re confident that the trend is real because it’s happening over a very broad area and it’s been happening over the last, not just five years, it’s been really happening over the last 40 years,” said Gensini. 

Because of that, West Virginia may continue to see more tornadoes than before. But for now, scientists say several more years of research are needed to determine whether this year’s record high is an anomaly or part of the shifting trend.

“There’s no conclusion that you can draw that there’s going to be more tornadoes from now on based on this one year,” said John Peck, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Charleston, adding that the improved technology to detect tornadoes could also play a part in the higher number.

“The ability for us to detect tornadoes has gone up significantly over history with improvements in radar and remote sensing, especially with drone technology it’s a lot easier to go out and find the damage,” he added.

Jana Houser, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at The Ohio State University, echoed a similar sentiment, noting that there wasn’t a good way to standardize records and observations of tornadoes until the late 20th century.

“We don’t have a really strong understanding of what’s happened, especially prior to 1990,” Houser said. “So, I always like to kind of make that little cautious note there that, yes we do think that this is something unusual, but we don’t have a very long history of actually comparing this to.” 

Over time, researchers have adjusted to those technology and software improvements, Gensini said. And despite those advancements, experts have continued to see the same upward trend in tornadoes east of the Mississippi, he added.

Besides just an increase in the number of tornadoes each year, West Virginia could also see an increase in tornadoes over a shorter period of time: Houser said experts have found that while the number of days that are favorable to tornadoes has decreased, there are a higher number of tornadoes on days there is tornadic activity.    

“We’re having one or two events that are really just supercharged and creating like a whole lot of tornadoes, which is a little bit unusual,” she added. 

This trend could explain why most of the tornadoes West Virginia has experienced this year came during the April 2 storm.

While Gensini and Houser attributed climate change as a factor influencing the two trends, they both noted that the full extent of climate change’s impact on tornadic activity is still unclear. 

“That’s where we don’t have a great understanding,” Gensini said. “Is climate change 5% of that role? Is it 100% of that role? 20% of that role? We don’t know exactly.” 

According to Gensini, the field of study needed to fully understand the relationship between climate change and severe weather, including tornadoes, is still in its infancy, but experts are working to try to “push that needle forward.”

“It’s hard to directly equate climate change and tornadoes because tornadoes are such picky events,” said Houser. “But we can say the environmental conditions that would potentially favor tornadic storms are changing a little bit, especially in the geographic distribution of where those conditions are met.”