Talk:Tornado Alley

Does this sentence make sense?

I'm having a hard time understanding this sentence from the opener. Does it actually make sense or should it be rewritten? "Tornado climatologists distinguish accompanied of thunderstorm activity in certain areas[2] and storm chasers have long recognized of the hail, the Great Plains tornado belt." (Talk) 18:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Caps or uncaps?

Is "tornado alley" as the subject of this article capitalized or uncapitalized? It's put both ways in the article, and I'd like to possibly resolve the ambiguity. SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

A Contradition

This article seems to be contradictory. The article states that Missouri and Arkansas lie entirely within tornado alley but the outline map of tornado alley has both those states entirely outside of tornado alley. Which is it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pammb (talk • contribs) 23:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

Clicking on the map with the red outline takes you to its info page at The Commons, where there is a description of what the outline means, datawise. I added the description to the map's caption here. I guess there are various ways to define the region. Pfly 03:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I just tried to improve the article, hopefully I did. What I think is important to understand is there is no one official definition of tornado alley, if you Google that term and find 10 different maps of it within 2 minutes. I tried to make this point clear in my re-org of the article and removed any language that said any one area was definitely in it. What's ironic to me is that the most generally accepted form of tornado alley seems to be the swath of area east of the Rocky Mountains from Texas northward to Nebraska, yet the worst tornado outbreak and the worst single tornado both occured outside of this zone. Gopher backer 04:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

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... Is this so called "Tornado Alley" actually worthy of having it's own article in the first place? It IS contradictory to which area in the US really are prone to the high rate of tornadoes and destructive tornadoes. "States to the east of this region do experience strong tornadoes, however they do not occur with the frequency as they do in states to the west." -This is an unreasonable statement and misses the point that tornadoes that the worst tornadoes that occur in Oklahoma are NOT unusual to occur farther to the west with the same magnitude; the area which is never stated in the "Tornado Alley". The image in this article: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Tornado_Alley.gif REALLY CONTRADICTS TO THE TORNADO ALLEY ONLY COVERING THE CENTRAL US. What I am saying is that: DESTRUCTIVE LONG-TRACK TORNADOES ALWAYS OCCUR OUTSIDE THE AREA CONSIDERED THE TORNADO ALLEY EVERY YEAR. Therefore, the info saying there are "smaller tornado alleys" should be expanded because it's rather true.

One last thing: EVERY TIME A SIGNIFICANT TORNADO DOES OCCUR IN THE CENTRAL US, WHY MENTION THE AREA IS CONSIDERED THE TORNADO ALLEY WHILE MORE SIGNIFICANT TORNADOES OCCUR IN AREAS TO THE EAST AND DON'T GET MENTIONED AS THE TORNADO ALLEY???

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.157.200 (talk • contribs) 16:00, 22 August 2008

Questioned Validity

"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."

The above statement may be true to a certain extent but my personal observations, admittedly extremely limited, do not offer any proof for the declaration. Considering the HUGE number of regulating authorities, basically, one per geo-political area establishing local building codes, it seems to little old pudgy me it would be difficult to ascertain the level of "strictness" of building codes within "tornado alley."68.13.60.210 (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Tornado Season

Why is this an "incorrect" term? Surely it's just a colloquial term for a time when there are a high number of tornadoes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.70.244 (talk) 05:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Canada

This article makes no mention of the part of Canada in Tornado Alley. (KxWaal) 19:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

And it should, as Canada gets 100 (known) tornadoes, with possibly hundreds more just north of the population belt, often evidenced by strips of destroyed forest every year. To think that natural laws stop at political borders is nonsense. I guess some Americans take pride in the false notion that tornadoes are all-American. They even get mad when Canadians post tornado videos on YouTube.

The idea that Canada should be included as part of tornado alley is ludicrous at best. Canada may experience 80 to 100 tornadoes a year, but there are numerous cases in which regions of the United States experience 100 or more tornadoes in a DAY. In addition, the vast majority of Canadian tornadoes are not considered to be violent (EF3 or larger). There simply is not enough warm, moist air to combine with the cold air from the north to create an unstable atmosphere in which violent tornadoes spawn with regularity, unlike much of the American Midwest and South in which tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are inevitable, it's only a question of when and where. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.38.135.122 (talk) 08:26, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Some supercell events in the U.S. that produce large areas of severe thunderstorm activity can and have created 100 tornadoes combined within a handful of hours. Tornadoes are possible almost anywhere on Earth, but the fact is that they becoming increasingly rare as altitude, temperature extremes and humidity levels and fluctuations decrease. Even including Minnesota and North Dakota and possibly South Dakota in "Tornado Alley" is ridiculous, and its a relatively minor "amendment" of the "definition" of "Tornado Alley" that has resulted in their inclusion. When I started U.S. public school 37 or 38 years ago, "Tornado Alley" was basically Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. And not even the ENTIRETY of THOSE states was necessarily included. And it's a virtual certainty that those "strips of destroyed forest" you mention are destroyed by straight-line winds, which are much more prevalent and destructive given the geography and atmospheric conditions of most of Canada. Trees actually survive tornadoes very well relative to structures because they have the ability to bend and flex and are at their most flexible with high moisture contents and usually less than complete leaf cover and development in MOST of "Tornado Alley" during the late spring/early summer when tornadoes typically occur. Straight line winds, on the other hand, fold trees over and keep them folded over and in densely forested areas a "domino effect" is possible. They're also particularly hard on trees in citys and towns, which typically have much less developed and shallower root structures having been planted and cultivated vs. growing naturally in rural areas. But then again so are tornadoes. Either way, when Canada gets something even close to a NWS and some long-range weather detection and data gathering capability and can PROVE it "belongs" in "Tornado Alley", I'm sure "climate scientists" on the global warming/climate change bandwagon will be glad to redefine "Tornado Alley" to make it an INTERNATIONAL and therefore more "global center" for "extreme weather". But of course that's probably your agenda in wanting Canada included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 06:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Tornado Hit in 2001 my brother mom and dad hit with a tornado 🌪 2001:1970:459C:F900:64E5:EF65:C104:9046 (talk) 22:33, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Figure

A map of the United States with Tornado Alley outlined, here defined as the area where approximately 1 day or greater per decade contained a significant tornado.

I can't believe there is only 1 tornado every 10 years in the whole red region! Only this year there were hundreds of tornadoes in the US, many of them within the red region.

Is it one tornado per county? Per city? One tornado can be seen from a given place? Within a given distance?

The legend should be clarified, but I couldn't find more accurate data about it.

Calimo (talk) 13:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Its very simple. Good old semantics and creative use of vocabulary and definitions. For a tornado to be "significant" it has to affect one or more human beings directly. The majority of towns and cities and even rural residences and by extension the people that live in them in the U.S. go years and decades and in some cases a CENTURY or more without being "affected" by a tornado directly i.e. property damage, loss of life, injuries, etc. I live in a farmhouse built in 1916 right in the HISTORICAL "Tornady Alley" (it gets larger and larger as "climate scientists" invested in the global warming/climate change industry seek to create more "extreme weather" to "prove" their "science is settled" claims) and obviously its never been destroyed by a tornado and nobody living here has ever been killed by one. So no "significant" tornado has occurred here for all that time.

They started trying to redefine and reevaluate U.S. weather and make it seem less "extreme" than it actually is when people started noticing that if there should be a big increase in "extreme weather" it should be very noticeable where there is not only a lot of "extreme weather" already but a very large population and where the overwhelming majority of "extreme weather" territory is populated, covered by weather radar, has people who as a hobby or as a part-time job are weather observers (most NWS weather data is provided by volunteer weather observers who record and report local weather conditions for years or decades) and where there is omnipresent media access, television and radio broadcasting, emergency services, etc.

At the same time, knowing full well that if they don't convince Americans of "global warming/climate change" they're pretty well screwed, they've tried to expand the definition of "extreme weather", which is now why we have winter storms that are named, governments and entire towns and cities and areas of states that are "shut down" with "emergencies" declared based on weather FORECASTS rather than actual results, etc. In some areas of the country even "high winds" are "closing roads" including interstate and state highways, etc. Even in areas where "normal" winds can be 25-40 mph much of the year and where "high winds" are roughly double those speeds at MOST and only in GUSTS (we have two types of wind - sustained and "gusts" to make the "gusts" seem more extreme) and in certain open areas where they can occur at maximum speed, we now have state highways being closed.

It doesn't matter if you've lived there 30 or 40 or 70 years and haven't been blown off the road once in all that time. It's still "unsafe" to be on the roads. Oddly enough, businesses don't get that "road closing" data so you can get your tit in a wringer for not showing up at work even if you drive 30 miles to and from on a road that ends up "closed" due to "high winds". Gotta have more "extreme weather" to expand government and control. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 06:23, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Merging Dixie Alley with Tornado Alley

I really don't think they should be merged. Tornado Alley proper (most of the Midwest) has vastly different characteristics when it comes to geography and storm behavior than in Dixie Alley proper (much of the Southeast). It also has distinct peak seasons (May/June for Tornado Alley, March-May and October-November for Dixie Alley) as well as the fact that Dixie Alley tends to be deadlier despite having fewer tornadoes (which is also why it's known as "Killer Tornado Alley"). Lastly, two of your biggest historic outbreaks occurred in Dixie Alley: The Super Outbreak of 1974, and the April 25–28, 2011 tornado outbreak involved Dixie Alley. Even the outbreak which the infamous Tri-State Tornado is part of largely involved Dixie Alley. Each needs to be expanded with these characteristics in my opinion. --Maqattaq (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think they should be merged per many of the items Maqattaq pointed out. In addition I recently added additional information and many more sources so the Dixie Alley article is now much better sourced (it had 1 source before). Since the research over the past few years has shown that there other tornado hotspots that are somewhat distinct from Tornado Alley, they are notable and warrant separate articles. Bhockey10 (talk) 18:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The tornadoes in "Dixie Alley" also typically either occur during the "monsoon season" in the March-May timeframe and accompany HURRICANES during the October-November timeframe. Both the monsoon season and "hurricane season" are standard, annual events in an area of the U.S. with much more moderate, temperate weather "on average" than "Tornado Alley". And "Tornado Alley" does not have a "distinct peak season" since from north to south and east to west the "peak" of a "season" that can literally last 6 months between the first major thunderstorm and the last or even LONGER in years when thunderstorms occur in the FALL could be a SINGLE DAY or a WEEK or a MONTH.

What makes "Tornado Alley" a dangerous area for tornadoes is the fact that they can and do occur during a much longer period of time, can occur during or as a result of a large variety of atmospheric conditions, storm types and intensities and at any time of day or night. More factors are the relatively low population densities, the few large metropolitan areas and major airports and TV/radio news stations with radar areas, the huge variability in conditions of elevation, geography, geology, temperature and humidity with can create tornadoes in "Tornado Alley" when other areas of the world with similar conditions rarely if ever have tornadoes and the large percentage of the population that lives and/or works outside and in remote, rural areas where emergency services can be many minutes to even hours away. The advent of cell phones and the popularity of "storm spotting" combined with more "city people" moving into the country to small acreages and small towns has resulted in a lot more "uneducated" and "uninformed" people seeing severe weather as a curiosity rather than a danger and more people are outside watching the weather than ever before. That has resulted in more and more major storms and tornadoes being reported and a large increase in the size of "tornado alley" now that some areas that didn't USED TO BE part of it have proven themselves to have MORE TORNADOES and MORE YEARS WITH TORNADO ACTIVITY than some much more "famous" and "well-known" historical areas of "tornado alley".

In particular the "High Plains" of Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado have "exploded" in terms of tornadoes being reported, and its not due to more "extreme weather". Its due to more people out there with cameras and cell phones reporting and recording it. The U.S. and particularly those areas that are suddenly and recently part of "Tornado Alley" have seen a huge increase in the number of "trained weather observers" and volunteer firefighters, police officers, EMTs etc now flood the countryside during severe weather events. Increased traffic on major state highways, U.S. highways and interstate highways in those areas has also increased the number of severe weather observations and reports. Which is actually a GLOBAL PHENOMENON and yet another reason why using "extreme weather" statistics as "proof" of "global warming/climate change" is completely ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 06:39, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Huh?

Tornado alley has no clear definition, but this article misses the mark even given that. Indiana for example is widely known as being in "tornado alley," and even the frequency map in this so-called encyclopedic article shows it as highly prone as anywhere else in the country. Yet the depiction of tornado alley only shows some area out in the southern plains. Sorry, wiki misses it again and shows itself to indeed be the six-grade term paper of encyclopedias, i.e., you'd be better off ready some grade school report than depending on wiki for anything but garbage. at least if it were a print encyclopedia you could use it for toilet paper - as is, it isn't even good for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.51.66.32 (talk) 19:01, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Growing up in the American Heartland (and part of the proper Tornado Alley), not once was Indiana ever considered to be a part of Tornado Alley. Nice try, but very few people agree with you outside of the Hoosier State.

I've lived in the south-western part of Ohio my whole life, right in the area one of the figures has marked with the darkest red. This makes it seem like we're a big "tornado alley" place, but we rarely get tornadoes and the ones that we do get are weak and don't do hardly any damage (exception being the one from a few months ago). In other parts of the article, we aren't even mentioned despite our seemingly heavy tornado location. Would someone care to explain how south-west Ohio is part of Tornado Alley? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.215.157.47 (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

New "USA Today" article and maps

The article has a new, expanded graph, but "Old" and "New" are not chronlogical, do not have a description of what either "old" or "new" are, and suggests a different methodology, rather than different data. If the troublemaking anon wants to include the map, he will need to include a credible explanation of what the map means. On the other hand, I have no idea what the current map means, even with the description. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed the description of the 2nd map on Commons:, although it still doesn't make much sense. Perhaps the description here could be modified. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The new map in the USA Today article seems to be including Dixie Alley and other than that it seems to be the same map. Tornado alley has always been rather subjective but generally it's considered to include Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and sometimes eastern Colorado and western Iowa and western Missouri. All in all there's no standard scientific definition of tornado alley. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 16:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, having had a detailed look at the USA Today article now, I have to say that this "Old"/"New" thing is a bit unreliable. What I would consider the top reliable sources for any change in tornado alley (NSSL\SPC) are both quoted at the end of the article saying basically that the CoreLogic report that the "new" map was based off of is flawed and that tornado alley has not changed. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 20:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

This map may be of interest to some extent - I think it illustrates the problem of lumping Kansas and Kentucky together as though there is no significant difference. One of the problems I had with that one specific version of the article, and others have touched on this, is that the USA Today article did not say the map was old - just that that definition is an older one. AlexiusHoratius 21:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I suppose one could argue that the map I linked to is also highly dependent on the sizes of states, but at that point we're getting into original research/synthesis territory. Another issue at play is population density and casualties - if the tornados that took out Spencer, SD or Manchester, SD had happened in Alabama you probably would have had 50 or 60 deaths. AlexiusHoratius 21:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

How about in External Links instead? 99.181.132.241 (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason for it. The article notes a change of methodology, but it is not really definitive that either methodology is actually used outside of USA Today. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Why?

All this debate about what qualifies as Tornado Alley, yet the page does not address the reasons why tornadoes are more common in this (undefined) area, unless one counts the map of the weather systems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terez27 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

They're most common because "Tornado Alley" has large areas of heavily forested/cropped/green ground conditions, large amounts of surface water (few large lakes and reservoirs but thousands of creeks, rivers, ponds and other small bodies of water that collectively release huge volumes of water through evaporation), large changes in elevation/altitude, major fluctuations in temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure and is the most "seasonal" geographic area on Planet Earth. Temperatures can fluctuate from tens of degrees F within a few minutes when a storm front comes through an area to well over 100 degrees F at any given point in the Midwest U.S. between the summer high and winter low. Fluctuations up to 130 degrees are relatively common with huge swings in atmospheric moisture and relative humidity, as well.

Large fluctuations in atmospheric moisture and relative humidity also occur, and humidity is what produces the moisture for major warm air masses to become "charged" with precipitation moisture and insulated by the high humidity so they stay warm and moist longer. Its very typical for humidity levels to rise dramatically in the Midwest in the late afternoon/early evening and particularly about dark as plants "open up" and begin transpirating when the heat of the day and bright sunlight and low humidity have kept them "shut down" and their pores closed during the hot part of the day. As summer progresses, this large increase in humidity happens later and later in the day, conditions in the atmosphere become drier and drier due to the longer days and major precipitation events and especially severe thunderstorms become fewer and farther between.

All TRUE "extreme weather events" such as thunderstorms, blizzards, hurricanes etc involve at least some precipitation and in most cases its the large precipitation amounts that are the true "newsmakers". Although generally described and reported as "extreme weather" a DROUGHT is nothing of the kind. A DROUGHT is actually typified and created by a LACK OF WEATHER, and "drought" is just as normal as "extreme weather" in the areas where it occurs repeatedly. In fact, it's basically the opposite end of the same scale.

In the U.S. Midwest, the peak of "tornado season" or "severe weather season" is usually in the very late Spring and early Summer when ground temperatures start to increase significantly, snow melt in the mountainous areas peaks, ground water levels and surface water volumes peak and the days are long enough and warm enough and the nights mild enough for evaporation to charge the atmosphere with sufficient moisture to create large, powerful storms but not so much that torrential rains when a huge, warm and humid air mass collides with a cold air mass causes the storm to "rain itself out" very quickly.

As warm, moist air rises during the day and particularly the late afternoon, cool and dry air rushes into replace it. Cooler, drier air is more dense and the "low pressure" area under an updraft sucks in colder, drier air. The temperature and humidity differences don't have to be huge. Depending on the geography and geology, single-digit temperature differences and low double-digit humidity differences can kick off the storm. And invariably, lower altitudes and latitudes warm sooner than higher elevations and altitudes because they have longer days and a "thicker" atmosphere to act as insulation at night.

They also have more ground water, longer growing seasons and plants come out of dormancy sooner and crops are planted earlier. This jump-starts transpiration as moisture from the ground is wicked into the air by grass, trees and other plants. Cooler, drier air from higher elevations and altitudes literally runs "downhill" into these areas, the large, dense and high-speed cold air mass collides with the warm air mass since it tends to be more uniform and "taller" whereas the warm, moist updraft air stratifies as it boils upward.

The cold, dry air also develops a huge positive electrical charge as it flows along dry, warm ground and static electricity builds, but because the air is too dry for a good conductive path to the ground. higher and drier elevations have fewer trees and other natural "lightning rods" and fewer man-made structures and the air mass is moving too rapidly for the potential energy to cause lightning strikes, the charge builds and builds. When the cold, dense high-velocity air mass rushes into and under a warm, moist updraft area, the two air types are drawn toward each other by the temperature differential as heat from the warm air mass tries to flow toward the cold air mass (heat always flows from warm to cold) while their different electrical charges and "polarities" try to repel them from each other.

The result is a "mixing" action that tends to be very violent, inconsistent and unpredictable but inevitable and entirely natural as the atmosphere literally "balances out" and energy is dissipated in the form of lightning, high winds, etc. When you get out onto the OCEAN, where the only altitude is "sea level" and natural currents delay and slow down the production and accumulation of energy and evaporation is greatly slowed by the lack of plant life and electrical energy has no way to dissipate naturally, you end up with much more massive volumes of warm, moist air and much larger volumes of colder, drier air but a smaller differential in humidity and temperature, so that when they DO finally collide and being to mix, the result is a tropical storm up to and including HURRICANES.

Thunderstorms over land and tornadoes do much more severe LOCALIZED damage WHEN tornadoes actually touch down and come in contact with structures, but the fact is that only a tiny fraction of tornadoes ever touch down, even fewer touch down and make contact with structures and human habitation and the large majority of THOSE are minor tornadoes with relatively weak, short-lived wind events that do little or no permanent damage to structures, trees, crops, etc. A huge amount of money is spent trying to "predict" tornadoes and severe thunderstorms and the theory is that "more warning" will reduce fatalities, but huge, violent tornadoes actually kill relatively few people even when they're multiple miles wide and are on the ground for dozens of miles simply because with that large of a thunderstorm and tornado in an area where the overwhelming majority of people KNOW ABOUT SEVERE WEATHER, people take cover and survive.

Its small, sudden and relatively small tornadoes that can come out of nowhere with little or no warning or that strike while everyone's attention is focused on a larger, more powerful tornado that do the majority of killing. And the fact is that with basements being the most common "shelter" and truly huge and violent tornadoes leveling nearly every structure they strike with the result being the structure collapsing into the basement, you'll never prevent all tornado deaths with any amount of warning.

In fact, as more and more people have moved into towns and newer homes with basements have replaced old farm houses in rural areas and modern refrigerators and grocery stores have replace underground root cellars, additional knowledge and more warning of large storms hasn't really reduced fatalities at all. Back in the "old days" of farm families and even most small towns and cities being populated with people from farm backgrounds and people working mainly outside at least part of the time, people were a lot more knowledgeable about the weather, knew the "signs" of impending severe weather and rushed to the root cellar rather than rushing for a video camera to record it or staying glued to a radio or television to get "weather updates". There were few if any "meteorologists" because most people knew as much or more about their local weather and climate than any college graduate of "meteorology" and people were self-sufficient and had common sense and didn't rely on the NWS or "storm chasers" or some radio announcer to "protect them" from something that literally couldn't be stopped or weakened of prevented.

They simply took cover when their experience, knowledge and instinct told them to do so. And its OBVIOUS to those of us who live and work outside some or all of the time today when its time to take cover. When the temperature drops 10-20 degrees in a few minutes, it becomes very calm and clammy out and your hair stands on ends and you get goosebumps, that's all nature telling you to get the hell in the basement or cellar. Now most people work and live inside in air-conditioned homes and businesses and travel in air-conditioned vehicles, and they never EXPERIENCE those sudden "extreme" weather changes. So inevitably some of them stay glued to the radio or television, go outside long after that cold front has come rushing through and they associate "cooler" with "safer" since invariably "experts" portray tornadoes as "hot weather" events instead of being caused by COLD AIR MASSES, and they end up dying when a tornado comes through. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 05:16, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Environment Canada frequency and intensity map

This government publication (map-graph) is, by definition, in the public domain. Could someone upload it into the Commons so it can be used here to complement the U.S. maps? Thanks! http://ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/6C5D4990-473C-42AD-91FF-230B8A6D11E4/fujitascalemap-688.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.91.170.20 (talk) 01:15, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

This definition applies to the US only, not to Canada AFAIK... there is no {{PD-CanadaGov}} (as {{PD-USGov}}) Calimo (talk) 11:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)4

I saw the mention in the article that there is "evidence that" tornadoes are becoming more common in Canada or something to that effect. In fact, there is no truth to that and the relative lack of accurate, consistent weather reporting across the majority of Canada historically and the relatively recent increases in weather stations, observations and increasing amounts of data available inevitably will show an "increase" in ANY kind of "weather event" simply because there are more observations being made. Trying to extend "Tornady Alley" into Canada for whatever reasons, including some which are no doubt political and intended to create more of a "relationship" bewteeen the U.S. and Canada and make Americans and Canadians feel more "connected" are also pretty ridiculous. "Tornado Alley" has pretty consistently increased in size in the U.S. for the last several decades of the global warming/climate change propaganda campaign, and now includes pretty much the entire U.S. "Midwest" and has even caused the "Midwest" to be expanded as a result.

Of course tornadoes are possible on every continent of the world except for Antarctica and there may be "historical records" of them occurring anywhere and everywhere, but the fact is that the further north you go in the U.S. the less common tornadoes are. The severe thunderstorms and tornadoes that OCCUR in those less-prone areas make more news specifically because they're less common. How many news stories or reports exist about a specific storm or tornado does not make it more or less significant than another. And huge variations in how weather is reported nationwide in the U.S. exist today and probably always have existed. A relatively small snowstorm in the northeast U.S. resulting in a few to maybe several inches of snow but well under a foot and a generally SMALL overall impact given that population density puts people closer to necessities and provides a larger, more comprehensive and faster emergency response are contradictory factors that should result in a minor storm being a minor event. But such a storm will be national news for several days while a sudden early or late season snowstorm and actually severe blizzard in the Midwest where huge geographic areas are affected and where people can be out of power for days many times per year for various reasons and where tens of thousands of people can be stranded hundreds or thousands of miles from home is generally a non-story compared to the smaller northeast storm.

Clearly there is more to that sort of unbalanced, biased reporting than just fewer people and smaller media markets in "flyover country". Making huge news out of small weather events in densely populated areas feeds directly into the global warming/climate change "more extreme weather" narrative. So does attempting to make Canada more "tornado prone".

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk • contribs) 05:32, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Tornado density numbers

The table ranking the states by Tornadoes per 10,000 sq mi uses numbers lifted from an old climatology center gif and are misleading because they utilize states' land areas rather than total areas even as a significant portion of tornadoes occur over water. Florida, for example, is 20% surface water and much of its tornado activity is coastal. I believe this is the reason the NOAA no longer uses the numbers in this 'Tornado Alley' article. This table should be reworked or deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.166.43.132 (talk) 21:55, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

And the data also gets skewed given the fact that in less densely populated areas a lot of tornadoes go completely unreported. Especially many that occur at night, which is something "climate scientists" rarely talk about. Generally speaking, severe weather at night at or after dark occurs at higher elevations in drier climates where the temperature and humidity fluctuations necessary to form strong thunderstorms and tornadoes occur much later in the day. They also tend to happen later in the summer after cool, calm springs. Tornadoes are all but invisible in the dark and a lot of fatalities that have occurred historically and several of the huge "tornado outbreaks" such as the Grand Island, NE event that killed 5 people in 1980 occur at or after dark. At least 7 tornadoes touched down and reports of up to 12 have existed since the event itself. 5 people were killed and the "outbreak" lasted at least 2 hours and possibly 3 hours since no "official" time is given for the last tornado.

Some of these events also coincide with shift changes for local law enforcement, which can occur at or around dark in the late spring/early summer in the U.S. Midwest. Historically law enforcement officers were the primary storm spotters, but many rural areas have very few officers, they frequently don't live and work in an area long enough to become familiar with the local weather and climate and may not receive spotter training and its only natural that in rural areas they tend to stay close to their homes when the weather is bad and they're on duty. They can live dozens of miles from their "headquarters" and may not get there at all regularly on patrol in those areas where they share courthouses or headquarters facilities with other agencies. It's also worth noting that small towns with volunteer fire departments have also had better luck getting warning of approaching storms and tornadoes than some much larger towns and cities because the volunteers go out and storm spot. There are also many local "storm spotters" and plenty of them live on farms or acreages away from the "light pollution" of towns and cities and where they can get to high ground or other good observation points.

A lot of of that is post-Grand Island and due directly to the fact that it looked very bad for a relatively large city (for Nebraska) with a local television station and many radio stations broadcasting to several surrounding counties and with a sister station in Lincoln and with a relatively flat geography and large horizons and the ability to see long distances AND full-time emergency services and police officers and professional firefighters way out of proportion to other rural Nebraska towns and counties to be "taken by surprise" like that. The close proximity of the city to Interstate 80 and its huge volume of interstate traffic also guaranteed a major national news response and the resulting criticism also stung Grand Island, Hall County and Nebraska "officials".

The Grand Island tornadoes are lumped in with an "outbreak" that occurred much farther east in Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, which is ridiculous given that weather in the U.S. almost always moves west to east and north to south. That Iowa and Indiana had tornadoes while Illinois did not definitely destroys the "outbreak" theory and claims. And the fact that the other states and tornadoes in the "outbreak" had storms and tornadoes occurring at "normal" times of day both prior to and after the nighttime Grand Island tornado outbreak also make lumping the events in together asinine. None of the states involved in the first day of the "outbreak" had tornadoes after the Grand Island event and neither Penssylvania or Virginia, which are the two states that had tornadoes the following day, are typically considered "tornado country" and have very few tornadoes relative to any state in "Tornado Alley".

But that helps give cover to the "scientific community" and feeds into the "global warming/climate change" agenda by trying to make all weather interrelated and universal rather than local. The tornadoes on the previous day in those states were much more "normal" in that they occurred in the mid to late afternoon and early evening. The Grand Island tornadoes, which occurred the following day but well over 24 hours later didn't begin until late evening at 7:45 p.m. For that area of the Midwest, that's pretty late for a severe thunderstorm to develop in an "average year", but lots of factors are involved and calm, cool to warm springs after mild, dry winters and preceding mild, dry early summers tend to result in severe weather events happening later in the year and later in the day.

Thunderstorms require significant temperature and humidity differentials between colliding air masses, and cooler, drier weather takes longer to produce those differentials both within a season and during days within that season. At the opposite extreme, very wet and warm early winters and early springs followed by early, hot and dry summers can significantly delay or even preclude a "severe weather season" in any area of the Midwest. If the right conditions aren't present, the thunderstorms and tornadoes won't form.

Another reason for including those other tornadoes in other states is that some occurred AFTER the Grand Island tornadoes, but no other state much less a single county within a state had anywhere near as many tornadoes, as severe of tornadoes or as many lives lost. In fact, of the 6 lives lost to the "multi-state outbreak", only one was outside Nebraska. You mention that a lot of Florida tornadoes are "coastal", and of course Florida has a huge coastline. And a great deal of "tornadoes" that get reported are in fact waterspouts. Which although potentially serious weather events, are generally very weak and short-lived and do very little damage. They're also natural phenomena completely natural at sea just like true tornadoes are natural events on land, but often get "dual reported" and therefore artificially drive up tornado statistics and severe weather statistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 06:01, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Water-spout alley

~If twister-alley existed since the cretaceous period, which was under the Western Interior Seaway, wouldn't it have been known as "Water Spout Alley"? (just curious)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.186.6.124 (talk) 03:24, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Addition to geographical importance of Tornado Alley

  There was little mention of the significance of the geographical location of tornado alley and what air temperatures and directions were making this area an ideal environment for tornadoes to form. Therefore I added:

"In Tornado Alley, warm, humid air from the equator meets cool, dry air from Canada and the Rocky Mountains. This creates an ideal environment for tornadoes to form within developed thunderstorms and super cells.[51]" Mmcca44 (talk) 22:05, 27 October 2016 (UTC)mmcca44

Also added hyperlinks to the terms "Rocky Mountains" and "super cell," therefore the reader can have clarification of temperature differences as well as a supercell's influence on a tornado's formation. Mmcca44 (talk) 22:10, 27 October 2016 (UTC)mmcca44

References

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Why does the article leave out how important COLD air is to tornadoes, thunderstorms and other "extreme weather" events?

The fact is that "extreme weather" invariably occurs when the "climate" is neither at its hottest or coldest extremes. In areas characterized by consistently "extreme" weather and atmospheric conditions such as temperature and humidity, so-called "extreme weather events" are much less common than in more "temperate" areas where large fluctuations in temperature and humidity occur. For the same reason the peak of "tornado season" in the U.S. midwest and particularly in "Tornado Alley" is in the late spring and early summer when relatively cool nights and warm days create large, rapid fluctuations in air temperatures.

As summer progresses and temperature fluctuations decrease due to the peak temperatures of the soil, plant life and other physical features such as cities, towns, roads etc, "extreme weather" events become rare and very isolated compared to earlier in the year. The same phenomenon occurs during the late fall and early winter up until about the end of January, when the air tends to be at its coldest and driest and moisture available for major snowstorms, ice storms etc is minimal. Ultimately, one of the fundamental flaws in the theory of global warming and claims that along with it would come major increases in "extreme weather" is that it takes significantly COLDER and DRIER AIR colliding with warmer, moister air to produce any precipitation event. Therefore, a general warming of the atmosphere will produce more moderate weather.

Interestingly enough, nearly simultaneously with the nearly overnight replacement of "global warming" with "climate change" when facts like that and the falsification of "climate data" along with the revelation that "climate" has no actual, technical definition; suddenly "local" climate became both very important and proof of "climate change" in some cases where "extreme weather" allegedly increased, but irrelevant and not legitimate evidence AGAINST climate change in areas where change was minimal or non-existent and "extreme weather" decreased.

It's also interesting that in the U.S. and particularly in the midwest and other rural area of it, where there are large numbers of professional and amateur meteorologists and weather observers and where "climate data" has been collected by the same individuals for years and decades, local "climate" seems to be least important of all. Most interesting is that the continental United States and especially the "Midwest" U.S. has by far the most "extreme" weather throughout the year, with far larger temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure variations during the year than any other area on Earth. While "extreme weather" like thunderstorms and tornadoes can and have occurred in most places on Earth, they are eseentially "native" to the U.S. Midwest and as common and "normal" a weather phenomenon as any other and MORE "normal" than many weather phenomena. A year never passes in the U.S. Midwest without hundreds of thunderstorms and tornadoes, even if other climate phenomena like droughts or very wet years with "historic floods" occur only a few years in ten.

The fact is that there really is no such thing as "extreme weather" on Earth period, and particularly not in areas of the planet with large fluctuations in weather and climate. Even major snow events like huge snowfalls in the U.S. Rocky Mountains typically occur early in the winter "snow season" when the mountains themselves are still relatively warm, plants have not yet gone dormant (even "evergreen trees" which are said to stay "active" year-round actually become dormant during the winter, stop drawing moisture from the soil and transpirate to dry themselves out so they do not crack, split or even shatter in the bitter cold temperatures that occur everywhere they are native) and continue to release moisture into the air and there is sufficient sunlight to keep ground and air temperatures high enough to produce good evaporation from surface water.

At higher altitudes, the lower humidity levels and more intense UV energy from sunlight allow this warming to occur sooner and at a higher rate than at lower altitudes with more humidity and atmosphere for the UV rays to penetrate. Rock and rocky soils are also better heat storage mediums than soils found at lower altitudes. The huge amounts of year-round biomass present in high altitude mountainous areas also trap more heat and release it longer and more slowly than the more seasonal and more widely dispersed plants at lower altitudes.

Overall, the political and unscientific nature, content and presentation of "information" in Wikipedia articles involving climate, weather or weather events is another reason why there is nothing remotely "encyclopedic" about Wikipedia. When an article is "protected" from being edited with facts because they don't fit the "narrative" of climate change, global warming, etc. the result is propaganda

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.234.100.139 (talk) 04:30, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Comments

... dude the two maps tell two completely different stories. get it together, and get it RIGHT — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.28.21.95 (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

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Colloquial?

How is the term colloquial? Even the reference states that the media uses it. It's definitely used outside of everday speech. Eladabudi (talk) 06:09, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Modification of "origin of the term" suggested

I see that the section on the origin of the term "Tornado Alley" has this: "The term 'tornado alley' was first used in 1952 by U.S. Air Force meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush (1915–1982) and Captain Robert C. Miller (1920–1998), as the title of a research project[17] to study severe weather in parts of Texas and Oklahoma.[18][19][20].

I'm seeing that the term appeared in U.S. newspapers as early as the spring of 1948. B Taylor-Blake (talk) 18:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Include Niagara Region

Every year, Port Colborne and Fort Erie has tornadoes touched down, and it happened this month (August) 24.235.144.97 (talk) 22:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)