Tornado activity in the U.S. is shifting east, away from the Great Plains and toward the South, where many of the people most at risk live in mobile homes, according to a new analysis.
Mobile home residents are 15 to 20 times more likely to be killed in a tornado than those living in site‑built housing, according to the National Weather Service.
Twisters have increasingly struck east of the Great Plains’ Tornado Alley, according to a Wednesday report from the Census Bureau. This year, Illinois has led the nation in the number of tornadoes.
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The weather phenomenon historically hit America’s breadbasket, touching down in states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, though tornadoes have been creeping eastward into the Midwest and South since the 1950s.
Illinois logged 243 preliminary tornado reports through Aug. 28, according to Storm Prediction Center data. The previous high was Texas’ 229 in 2015. In Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed 79 tornadoes by late July, breaking the state’s 2011 record.
The median geographic center of tornado activity from 1950 to 1964 was east of Coffeyville, Kansas, above the Oklahoma border, according to the Census Bureau. From 2010 to 2025, the median moved to around Shannon County, Missouri — a distance of approximately 250 miles.
2025 was one of the nation’s most active tornado seasons on record, with approximately 1,559 tornadoes, translating to 27% higher than the 30-year average from 1991 to 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In that same time frame, the number of tornadoes not only grew but shifted eastward, decreasing in the west by 25% and increasing in the east by 12%.
Tornado-producing storms need four ingredients: moisture, instability, lift and strong vertical wind shear, according to the National Weather Service. Warm, moist air from the Gulf increases instability, particularly when cooler, drier air sits above it, while fronts and other boundaries supply the lift.
In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, that moisture-rich air creates an uninterrupted, seven-month tornado season in the cooler months. Those southern states host a large concentration of mobile home communities, said the Census Bureau.
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