HISTORICAL EVENT INTELLIGENCE · TORNADO
Tornado Data
22,500+ US tornado warning and touchdown records from 2014 to present — EF ratings, footprints, timing, and population exposure, 99.4% enhanced. Download a free sample, license the full dataset, or stream it live by API.
What's in the dataset
Warning-grain tornado records — the most fully enhanced peril in DisasterAWARE's 514,000-record historical hazard archive.
EF rating
Where NWS damage surveys assigned one — ratings come from surveyed paths, never inferred
Footprints & coordinates
Every record has lat/lon; alert-polygon geometry is near-complete from 2019 onward (≥97% from 2023)
Timing
Start and end timestamps for every record
Hail & wind observations
Measured hail size and wind gusts where observations exist — never zero-filled
Casualties
NWS-based fatality counts via the tornado enhancement layer
Population & economic exposure
Modeled exposure inside each footprint — who and what the event could touch
Honest counting note: these are warning-grain records — mostly tornado warnings and the touchdowns confirmed under them — not a deduplicated tornado list, so one tornado can appear on several records, and detection density improves across the archive. Distinct tornadoes are a separate count: NWS and SPC records hold 15,774 distinct US tornadoes from January 2015 through September 30, 2026, and our city tornado pages count those. 2026 figures are provisional until SPC publishes its final 2026 tornado file, and September 2026 is preliminary while NWS damage surveys are completed. Why the report-vs-footprint distinction matters →
Start with a real sample
Eight surveyed events from the April–May 2024 Kansas outbreak sequence — free, no signup.
The sample covers April 26 – May 7, 2024 — the same continental pattern that produced the Elkhorn–Blair EF-3 near Omaha — as CSV and GeoJSON with a README describing every field. It is the exact structure full datasets ship in.
Tornado data by place
Live risk scores, current alerts, and event history for 1,600+ US and international locations.
Watching something right now? Live tornado activity shows what the feed is tracking this hour, and the Tornado Intelligence page covers the full detection-to-decision pipeline.
Two ways to get it
The same tornado records, served for history or for right now.
Historical datasets
Bulk exports filtered to your geography, date range, and rating threshold — CSV, GeoJSON, or NDJSON, by subscription or one-time purchase.
Historical Event Intelligence →Real-time tornado API
Tornado warnings and events as they are issued, with footprints and exposure — the live end of the same record structure.
Event Intelligence API →Tornado Data — FAQ
Where can I download historical tornado data?
DisasterAWARE offers a free tornado dataset sample — eight surveyed events from the April–May 2024 Kansas outbreak sequence — as CSV and GeoJSON with no signup, from the sample datasets page. Full historical tornado datasets, filtered to your geography and date range, are licensed through Historical Event Intelligence.
What does the tornado dataset contain?
22,500+ US tornado records from 2014 to present (23,182 worldwide), 99.4% carrying the enhancement layer: EF ratings where NWS surveys assigned them, warning and event footprints (near-complete geometry from 2019 onward), timing, hail and wind observations where measured, NWS-based fatality counts, and modeled population and economic exposure. Every record has coordinates; formats are CSV, GeoJSON, and NDJSON.
Is there a tornado data API?
Yes — two. The Event Intelligence API streams live tornado warnings and events as they are issued, and Historical Event Intelligence serves the historical archive by query — by state, county, radius around a point, EF rating, date range, or exposure threshold.
Are these counts of actual tornadoes?
No. They are warning-grain records — mostly tornado warnings and the touchdowns confirmed under them — so one tornado can appear on several records, and detection density improves over the archive. To count tornadoes, count distinct tornadoes: NWS and SPC records hold 15,774 distinct US tornadoes from January 2015 through September 30, 2026 (2026 provisional; September 2026 preliminary pending NWS damage surveys), and that is what our city tornado pages count. Survey-confirmed path ratings are carried where the NWS assigned them.
How current is the tornado data?
Live tornado activity flows through the real-time feed continuously. The historical archive's enhancement layer (ratings, exposure, observations) is refreshed on a rolling cycle that currently runs within weeks of real time.