Monday night brought at least one less common nocturnal winter tornado to Oklahoma

Not solely can tornadoes happen all through yr, however they’ll additionally occur any time of day.

While they’re most definitely to happen throughout the daytime hours in Oklahoma, nocturnal tornadoes nonetheless occur. A nocturnal tornado is outlined as one that happens between sundown and dawn.

A examine led by Walker Ashley from Northern Illinois University confirmed that there have been over 48,000 tornadoes confirmed from 1950 to 2005. In that, nocturnal tornadoes make up 27% of the tornadoes and have been liable for 39% of tornadic deaths and 42% of killer tornadoes. The conclusion was that tornadoes at night have been nearly twice as doubtless to kill as these throughout the daytime.

The examine additionally concluded that Oklahoma ranked within the high 20 states sorted by the best share of killer nocturnal tornadoes from 1950 to 2005. In that rank, Oklahoma got here in quantity at No. 17 with 37% killer nocturnal tornado occasions. While the neighboring state of Arkansas ranked No. 4 with a bit over 52% of killer nocturnal tornado occasions.

This previous Monday night brought a spherical of extreme climate to Oklahoma. While National Weather Service personnel estimated a couple of tornadoes occurred, as of Tuesday night solely one had been confirmed simply round and previous that sundown hour.

Not solely did this occasion carry the less common nocturnal tornado, but it surely additionally brought tornadoes in January, which statistically has the fewest variety of tornadoes every year.

According to the National Weather Service, January has a tornado common of 0.3, with 4 being essentially the most occurring throughout the month. That occurred in 2021, 2008, 1967, and 1957. This is in accordance to information stored from 1950 to 2021.

While January could have the least variety of tornadoes, it begins to choose up heading into February and the spring months. On common we see 0.7 tornadoes for the month of February, with six tornadoes being essentially the most confirmed in yr’s previous. That occurred in 2009 and 1975.

In March our common variety of tornadoes begins to spike — to 3.8 for the month, with 17 complete confirmed being the best quantity. This was in 1991. And our highest averaging month for tornadoes is May with 24.1. The highest variety of tornadoes to ever happen throughout the month of May was 105, which occurred only recently in 2019.

As of Tuesday night, solely one tornado had been formally confirmed — an EF-0 simply to the north-northeast of Pryor at round 5:39 p.m. Field crews at the time have been nonetheless engaged on a number of websites for affirmation.