tinychaseTornado kiosks · after dark, 1950 to 2025
The Night Shift
Tornado Alley isn't just drifting southeast; it's drifting into the dark. Each tile is a state; the shade is the share of its tornadoes that touched down after civil dusk, computed from the sun's actual elevation at the time and place of every record. Nocturnal tornadoes kill about twice as often as daytime ones.
The country, decade by decade
Share of tornadoes after dark, nationally. It fell through the 1980s, then climbed as activity moved toward the Southeast.
When they touch down
EF1+ touchdowns by local solar hour, 1950 to 2025. Plains tornadoes cluster in the late afternoon; Southeast tornadoes spread deep into the night. Shaded hours are dark for most of the year.
Data: TerraPulse tor dex (SPC tornado history cross-matched with NCEI Storm Events; US federal public domain), exported 2026-09-11. Night = solar elevation below -6 degrees (civil twilight) at the start time and start point of each track, using a simple declination model, accurate to a few minutes. Decades group by touchdown year; the 2020s run through 2025. Tornadoes with no rating are excluded, and a state tile goes blank when a decade holds fewer than 15. Fatality counts follow SPC.