Are Tornadoes On The Rise?

Bryan Walsh says that scientists "really don't know":

It's true that the average number of April tornadoes has steadily increased from 74 a year in the 1950s to 163 a year in the 2000s. But most of that increase, as A.G. Sulzberger reports in the New York Times, comes from the least powerful tornadoes, the ones that touch down briefly without causing much damage. Those are exactly the kind of tornadoes that would have been missed by meteorologists in the days before the Weather Channel and Doppler radar—scientists today would almost never miss an actual tornado touchdown, no matter how brief or weak. That makes it very difficult for researchers to even be sure that the actual number of tornadoes is on the rise, let alone, if they are, what might be causing it.

Alexis Madrigal ponders global warming's role. The Daily What captions the above clip:

Steven Hoag calmly converses with his sister from the Fred’s Food Club parking lot in Wilson, NC, as an EF2 tornado barrels toward his truck. Asked by ABC11 how he was able to maintain his composure, Hoag replied “I was a Marine, and I love Jesus!”