WICHITA, Kan. – A record number of tornadoes touched down nationwide last year.

Remarkably, the national death toll ended up far below the annual average.

Until May rolled around, 2004 was most notable for how few tornadoes there had been.

The jet stream shifted to a path that created ideal conditions for the formation of the supercell thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes.

“It’s like someone almost flipped a switch there by mid-May,” Wichita weather researcher Jon Davies said.

An extraordinarily high number of tornadoes produced by hurricanes made 2004 a national record-setter, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said. A whopping 420 tornadoes were reported in August and September, more than four times the average for those two months.

So many tornadoes touched down around the country that the old record for tornadoes fell long before the calendar ran out.

There were 1,555 tornadoes around the country through September, according to statistics compiled by the prediction center. That surpasses the previous record, set in 1998, by more than 130. Tornado reports for the final three months have yet to be confirmed.

The higher numbers do not necessarily mean more tornadoes are occurring now than in years past – they simply mean the tornadoes that are forming are getting noticed.

“If we had had the radars, the spotters and the warning systems in the 1950s, there are a couple of years – like ‘57 or ‘55 – that it wouldn’t surprise me if they had more tornadoes than we have now,” said Mike Smith, founder and chief executive of WeatherData, a private forecasting service based in Wichita.

“But with the revolution in tornado science and detection that started in the early 1970s, it’s easier to set a record now.

“The good news is, it’s saving lives.”

Nationwide, 35 people were killed by tornadoes last year, less than two-thirds the annual average.

Improvements in technology allow meteorologists to spot rotation in thunderstorms and issue tornado warnings before a funnel even forms. Networks of trained storm spotters and an explosion in the number of “storm chasers” provide many witnesses to confirm if a funnel cloud has reached the ground.

“If it touches down for 10 seconds, it gets reported, whereas that never happened 50 years ago,” Smith said.