On August 24, 2016, numerous tornadoes scoured the landscape across central Indiana and into northwest Ohio. What made the outbreak notable is not only the time of year — tornado outbreaks are unusual in late August — but also that the outbreak caught many meteorologists off guard. In this post, we’ll walk through some of the meteorological factors that led to this unexpected event, look at why the forecast missed, and think about what we can take away from it all.
This event will likely go down as one of the largest tornado outbreaks during the month of August since modern records began. The daily record is 40 tornadoes associated with Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005. The largest non-tropical cyclone-induced outbreak on record in August is 30 tornadoes, which occurred over the Midwest on August 29, 2009.