Could Oklahoma Really Finish May Without A Single Tornado?

It's almost unfathomable to think, but May 2026 could end up in the history books. Going completely tornado-less across Oklahoma.

That's insane to think. May is Oklahoma's severe weather month. It's always the most active, and has historically produced the biggest and most tornadoes annually, but we're days away from going without a single tornado.

Now, before you pipe up with the "We had a tornado warning" talk, there were a handful of tornado warnings issued during a few storms, but they were based on radar and potential. Straight-line winds were a thing during the one really edgy storm that hit Newkirk earlier this month, but zero confirmed twisters have happened during this unbelievably quiet May.

While it's a very unlikely weather phenomenon for us, it has happened once before. 2005 was the only other tornado-free May in Oklahoma since records began. Some years may have only produced one tornado, and our high score of 105 in one month is also a May, but just the one other tornado-less month of May.

We're not out of the woods yet.

Because we still have a few days left in the month, and a little weather pattern is moving in, we could still break this current perfect streak.

It's not likely based on the forecast, but it's always a possibility.

By far, the best odds of severe weather this week will happen today and tomorrow. But even so, the emphasis is on heavy rain and flooding conditions, not hail and tornadoes.

There's always a chance that the expected popcorn showers could suddenly intensify, but the odds of that happening are astronomically low over the remainder of the month. The atmosphere just doesn't have the potential, at least not that the computer models can see.

But, as Oklahoma often goes completely off-script, you can't rule anything out.

All the same, it would be vaguely interesting and sort of neat to live through another tornado-less May in Oklahoma.

The week ahead.

While there's a chance of heavy and soaking rain across the state, or in some areas for the next seven days, it looks as if Wednesday will be the last call for twisters. Or, at least, the last day of the month that could potentially spin even a small one up.

The rest of the week is unseasonal April showers as we head into June.

Any worry in June?

Eh, it's hard to say. Every month in Oklahoma can produce severe weather when conditions are right, and June certainly has a history of doing just that.

If you look back through the severe weather almanac, in the years with the chillest Mays, June typically produces some monster hailstorms.

That's not to say it will happen. This is all just hypothetical, but when May has been quiet across SWOK in the last decade, we typically get caught up in June with historic hail.

In fact, the coined term "DVD-sized hail" originally came out of a storm that went through Fletcher and Elgin, OK, a few years ago. And then again a month later. And again a year later. Then Lawton was blessed with the convergence of two hailstorms that collided and remained practically stationary while it dropped up to six-inch hail for an hour and a half.

Is history going to repeat itself?

Nobody knows. The computer models don't know. Meteorologists don't know. The knowledge of what comes after a tornado-less May in Oklahoma is still unknown, as it's only happened once in the last 75 years.

Regardless of what may come, 2026 could be the year you live through history happening a second time.