Christmas day tornadoes and Christmas week tornado history

Tornadoes during Christmas Week? It could happen again this year, on Christmas Day, but it shouldn't be a huge outbreak like those in 2015 or 2012 (see links below). Our current news story Christmas severe weather episode may threaten lives from Oklahoma to South Dakota says: "The severe weather threat includes the potential for a few tornadoes. The greatest risk for tornadoes will be near and north of Interstate 70 over the central Plains."

Christmas Week has quite the history of tornadoes, but they are almost always in the Southeast or Mississippi Valley. Climatologically speaking, the area favored for twisters this year, in the classic "Tornado Alley" area, is not normal. The image below illustrates the probability of being in a Tornado Watch on December 23-26:

For the week of December 25, there have been nearly 400 tornadoes recorded since 1950, with the most of those on December 23 and 24 -- they are least likely on December 22, 26, or 28. Of course, this data set may not be robust enough to give good daily averages. Nonetheless, it indicates when the big outbreaks have been.

Last year was particularly tornadic due to the El Nino. Tornadoes were reported on every day of Christmas week in 2015, though the big days were December 23 and 27.

In 2014, the majority of the tornadoes and severe weather reports were on December 23, with a couple on Christmas Eve.

2012 was the last time we had a large tornado outbreak on Christmas Day.

Here is a loop of the radar and warnings that day:

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