Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley, in the United States, the area where tornadoes most frequently occur. It includes portions of the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.

A tornado is a small-diameter column of violently rotating air developed within a convective cloud and in contact with the ground. Tornadoes occur most often in association with thunderstorms during the spring and summer in the mid-latitudes of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. When the number of tornado occurrences, their intensity, and the area they affect are considered, the centre of tornado activity in the United States is unquestionably seen to exist in the western portions of the southern Great Plains. The region of maximum tornado frequency known as Tornado Alley extends from west Texas northeast through the western and central portions of Oklahoma and Kansas and across most of Nebraska.

Another area of frequent tornado occurrence is found across eastern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, western Ohio, the southern portions of Wisconsin and Michigan, and the northern part of Kentucky. While this area experiences fewer tornadoes than Tornado Alley, it has been struck by some of the strongest known tornadoes and has been the site of several large tornado outbreaks (that is, the occurrence of multiple tornadoes from the same weather system). The Gulf states (from east Texas to central Florida) have many weak tornadoes and have had outbreaks. The Gulf states also experience many tornadoes associated with hurricanes.