Tornado Alley

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For the book by William S. Burroughs, see Tornado Alley (book).
An outline of Significant Tornado Alley in the United States, where the highest percentage of violent tornadoes occur

Tornado Alley is a colloquial term most often used in reference to the area of the United States in which tornadoes are most frequent. Although an official location is not defined, the areas in between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains are the areas usually associated with it.[1]

Contents

[edit] Tornado geography

Tornado activity in the United States.

Although no state is entirely free of tornadoes, they are most frequent in the plains between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The state where strong twisters most commonly occur is Oklahoma.[2] When all tornadoes are taken into account, however, Florida has the highest density of tornado occurrence in the country.[3] Nearly all of Florida's tornadoes are weak, short-lived, and not produced by supercell thunderstorms that originate from cumulonimbus clouds; Oklahoma has the highest occurrence of such "classic" supercellular tornadoes. In contrast, the Northeast and West tend to be the least tornado-prone regions in the United States. The Netherlands have more tornadoes per area than Oklahoma or Florida, but because the absolute number of tornadoes is small, intense tornadoes are infrequent.

Tornado Alley

[4]

[edit] Definition

Although Tornado Alley is generally considered to be in the areas of the Central United States, no official definition of the term has actually been produced by the National Weather Service. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory FAQ,[5] "Tornado Alley" is a term created by the media to refer to areas that have greater numbers of tornadoes. There are several ideas of what Tornado Alley is, but those ideas are the result of the different criteria used to refer to it.

The most common definition of Tornado Alley is the location of where the strongest tornadoes occur most frequently. In the United States that location is from northern Texas, northward through western Oklahoma and Kansas, and eastern Colorado and through Nebraska into south-eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota and western Iowa.[citation needed] Tornadoes are experienced to the east of this region,[6] however, they do not occur with the frequency as they do in states to the west.[citation needed] This also is the case extending northward into North Dakota, Ontario, and the Canadian Prairies.[citation needed] All severe weather including hail, wind, and tornadoes are most frequent throughout the year in eastern Colorado from the Front Range to the northeast corner. Because of the extreme weather, this area of Colorado is known as "Hail Alley".

Diagram of Tornado Alley

[edit] Variations

The nickname "Dixie Alley" is sometimes used for the areas in the southeastern U.S.—notably the lower Mississippi Valley and the upper Tennessee Valley—which are particularly vulnerable to strong tornadoes. More people have been killed by tornadoes in this particular region than those of the Great Plains because of the higher population density in the southeastern United States.[7][8] The term Dixie Alley is used extensively by The Weather Channel.[9]

[edit] Impact

In the heart of tornado alley, building codes are often stricter than those for other parts of the U.S., requiring strengthened roofs and more secure connections between the building and its foundation.[citation needed] Other common precautionary measures include the construction of storm cellars, and the installation of tornado sirens. Tornado awareness and media weather coverage are also high.

Some studies suggest that there are also smaller tornado alleys located across the United States.[10]

[edit] Number of U.S tornadoes between 1950 and 1994

(Italics indicate states within the area of Tornado Alley)

  1. Texas: 5490[11]
  2. Oklahoma: 2300
  3. Kansas: 2110
  4. Florida: 2009
  5. Nebraska: 1673
  6. Iowa: 1374
  7. Missouri: 1166
  8. South Dakota: 1139
  9. Illinois: 1137
  10. Colorado: 1113

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tornado FAQ
  2. ^ "TORNADO NUMBERS 1950 - 1994". Storm Prediction Center. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/archive/tornadoes/st-trank.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-26. 
  3. ^ "Tornado Climatology". National Climatic Data Center. January 29, 2007. http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-26. 
  4. ^ An updated estimate of tornado occurrence in Europe
  5. ^ http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/faq/faq_tor.php
  6. ^ F5 and EF5 Tornadoes of the United States
  7. ^ "Southeast tornadoes are nation's deadliest". USA Today. May 20, 2005. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/tornado/wtordead.htm. Retrieved on 2007-10-16. 
  8. ^ Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Tornado Fatalities in the United States: 1880–2005
  9. ^ Gerard, Alan; Gordon, John. "Tornado Alley vs. Dixie Alley". National Weather Service. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/dixieAlley/img20.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-26. 
  10. ^ Broyles, Chris; C. Crosbie (October 2004). "Evidence of Smaller Tornado Alleys Across the United States Based on a Long Track F3-F5 Tornado Climatology Study from 1880-2003". 22nd Conference on Severe Local Storms, Hyannis, MA: American Meteorological Society. 
  11. ^ Windham, Ryder. "What you don't know about dangerous places." New York, U.S.A: First Scholastic printing, March 2002.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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