Phoenix area had 7 tornadoes in 2019, most since 1972

There were seven confirmed tornadoes across the Phoenix area in 2019, the most since 1972, according to the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

“That’s something I would say is a once-in-a-generation sort of thing,” Marvin Percha, a weather service meteorologist, told The Arizona Republic on Tuesday. The data goes back to 1950.

The weather service shared the information Tuesday as an update to the news that three tornadoes touched down in metro Phoenix one Friday morning in November.

Tornadoes are a rare event in the Phoenix area because the area doesn’t generally have both of the ingredients required to whip up a tornado: unstable air mass and wind shear, which occurs when the wind’s speed or direction or both change with height.

“It’s tough to get that around here. In the summer we have instability but we don’t have wind shear. In the winter we have kind of opposite, strong winds but don’t have the instability. It’s something that has to come together and in our part of the country that doesn’t happen very often,” Percha said.

While it is not clear why so many happened in 2019, Percha said climate change did not play a role.

“Climate change is kind of a long term thing; this is kind of what we call ‘weather,’ a short term thing. Historical data says it has happened before so it really – at this point, to speculate global warming would be really completely incorrect,” Percha said.

All of the tornadoes that hit metro Phoenix in 2019 were considered weak, ranking as either F0 or F1 on the Fujita scale, which is used to rate tornado intensity.

“Most tornadoes drop down in open desert, maybe pull a tree down, take some roofs off, but the vast majority of them here are quite weak,” Percha said.

The record still sits with 1972 and 2019 is in second place, but here are the other years metro Phoenix has seen the most tornadoes since 1950:

❚ Five tornadoes in 1992.

❚ Five tornadoes in 1993.

❚ Four tornadoes in 1971. Percha said the Phoenix area likely won’t see as many tornadoes in 2020.

“Statistically, it would be highly unlikely that it would repeat again this year,” he said. “It takes such a rare combination of things for tornadoes to happen in the Valley here in the first place.”