Tornado Alley
Tornado Alley
We get asked a lot about what exactly is Tornado Alley and where is it. The term “Tornado Alley” is an area on the United States where Tornadoes occur the most. The term was first used back in 1952 as the title of a research project by U.S. Air Force Meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C Miller to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota and Minnesota. The exact location of Tornado Alley has never been officially designated by National Weather Service. No state is entirely free of tornadoes, they just occur more frequently in the Central United States.
Tornado Alley has all of the weather conditions needed for a tornado to take shape. Tornadoes form when three different types of air converge in a specific manner: a layer of warm and humid air near the ground along with strong southerly winds; colder air along with strong west or southwest winds line the upper atmosphere; and a third layer of very warm dry air that hovers between the warm and moist air at low levels and the cool dry air above.
Can tornadoes be as deadly as they say they are? You bet! Look at these statistics of some of the most deadliest tornadoes:
| Date | Intensity | States affected | Deaths |
| March 18, 1925 | F5 | MO, IL, IN | 695 |
| May 6, 1840 | Unknown | LA, MS | 317 |
| May 27, 1896 | F4 | MO, IL | 255 |
| April 5, 1936 | F5 | MS | 216 |
| April 6, 1936 | F4 | GA | 203 |
| April 9, 1947 | F5 | TX, KS, OK | 181 |
| May 22, 2011 | EF5 | MO | 158 |
| April 24, 1908 | F4 | LA, MS | 143 |
| June 12, 1899 | F5 | WI | 117 |
| June 8, 1953 | F5 | MI | 116 |
