The first three months of the calendaryear are generally a very quiet time for tornado outbreaks. So far,2012 has been an exception.

According to Standard & Poor's,there have been 272 confirmed tornadoes so far in 2012. The severeweather has destroyed homes and businesses—and in some instancesleveled entire towns—throughout the Midwest and South.

With April through July normallyexperiencing the highest tornado activity, 2012 may proveto be a destructive severe weather year, although S&P notes that basing such estimates on the activity todate may be premature.

Click “Next” to see images fromaffected states including Indiana, Missouri and Michigan.

Residents comb through debris looking for personal belongingsafter a tornado ripped Trussville, Ala. on Monday, Jan. 23,2012.

Tornado activity started up early in 2012 when a January tornadoin the South caused more than $150 million in damages. In Alabamaalone, insured losses from a tornado outbreak caused an estimated$30 million in insured losses.

(AP Photo/Butch Dill)

Sherry Cousins and her brother Bruce Wallace of Hollister, Mo.,sit in the wreckage of their secondhand store in the country musicresort city of Branson, Mo.

Branson was amongst the hardest-hit areas when a total of 14tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois andArkansas on Feb. 29, 2012.

The tornadoes on the 28th and 29th killed 13 people and injuredmore than 200. Aon Benfield says the National Weather Service'sStorm Prediction Center confirmed 36 tornadoes in addition to hailand high winds through 10 states.

(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

An employee of Henryville High School examines the remains ofthe building after it was destroyed by a tornado on March 2, 2012,in Henryville, Ind.

Among the storms that hit the Midwest on March 2, the NationalWeather Service reports a single tornado touched ground through 49miles from southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. Henryville, oneof the hard-hit towns on the tornado's path, was all but completelydestroyed.

“It's hard to explain,” says Daniel E. Stone, president andchief executive of Indiana Farmers Mutual Insurance Co. “The schoolthey went to is gone. The church where they worshipped isgone.”

(AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

A home is destroyed in Athens, Ala. after a tornado from thesame powerful storms that wrecked Henryville, Ind. passed throughon March 2, 2012.

Catastrophe modeler EQECAT says the severe weather that formedtwo volatile weather systems during the period Feb. 28 to March 3produced an estimated $1 to $2 billion in insured losses. Most ofthe more than 150 tornadoes occurred in the states of Tennessee,Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Alabama, says EQECAT.

(AP Photo/Butch Dill)

Robert Elliott sits in his damaged kitchen after a tornadostruck his home in Harrison, Tenn., March 3, 2012.

January through March is a relatively quiet period in terms oftornado outbreaks. Historically, the most active period is Aprilthrough July.

(AP Photo/Billy Weeks)

Ashley King and her son Dallas King look around a damaged houseafter a tornado struck in Marysville, Ind., March 4, 2012. Calmweather gave dazed residents of storm-wracked towns a respite asthey dug out from a chain of tornadoes that cut a swath ofdestruction from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.

(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A resident sits on her back porch watching workers use heavyequipment to pick up the remains of a neighbor's home that wasdestroyed by a tornado on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, in Moscow,Ohio.

Neena Saith, director of catastrophe response for catastrophemodeler RMS says in a statement, “This activity is linked to thecombination of record warm temperatures in the region and a surgeof moisture from the south.”

(AP Photo/Al Behrman)

Katie Cramer looks over the front of her house in Dexter, Mich.,March 16, 2012 after a tornado touched down the night before,damaging or demolishing many homes, downing trees and powerlines.

More than 100 homes were damaged as three tornadoes touched downin Michigan, but there were no fatalities reported. Dexter was theworst damaged area.

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)