About Tornado History Map
An interactive map of every recorded US tornado since 1950, coloured by rating. Search a town or ZIP code to see how many tornadoes have passed nearby, the strongest and the most recent.
Tornado History Map is a free, single-purpose website. It is built to be useful on its own: you can explore the map, share a link to exactly what you are looking at, embed it on your own page or download an image of it. Everything is made from open data, and the credits are on the data sources page.
Who runs it
This site is run by Chris Barnes, a sole trader (England and Wales). It is one of a small family of map sites; you can find the others in the "More maps" list at the bottom of every page.
How accurate is it?
We show the data as its authors published it, and we try to be honest about how certain it is. Where something is a best guess, the map says so. If you spot a mistake in how we display or describe the data, please tell us.
How it is paid for
The site is free to use. It may show adverts, and it offers an optional email newsletter. We do not sell your personal data.
Why this site exists
Most tornado websites tell you what is happening now. This one looks back. It puts every tornado in the official US record on one map, so you can see how many have passed near a place you know, how strong they were and when the most recent one came through.
How the map is made
The tornadoes come from the Storm Prediction Center database of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We downloaded the 1950 to 2025 file on 2026-10-12, which holds 73,458 tornadoes. The counts for each state and county, and every figure on the place and year pages, are worked out from that file by a script that runs the same way each time. We do not add or change any records. See the data sources page for the full list of credits and licences.
What the map does not show
The record starts in 1950, so earlier tornadoes such as the Tri-State tornado of 1925 are not in it. Paths are mostly straight lines from the recorded start point to the end point, not surveyed damage paths. This site is not a forecast or a warning service. For live warnings, use the National Weather Service. Read the full notice.
Many of the tornadoes in this record killed or injured people. We describe them plainly and give the numbers as the official record has them.