The severe storms of the last couple of days have left Memphis untouched while some places close by, like Jackson, TN, northern Mississippi, Blytheville and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and locales in the bootheel of Missouri, got clocked pretty badly. It’s Memphis lore that the bluffs along the Mississippi river upon which the city was founded protect the city from tornadoes. The theory goes that winds carrying severe thunderstorms race along the flat delta of Western Arkansas until they are deflected to the north and south by the river and the bluffs on the Tennessee side, or upwards to fall on the flatter, less-well protected eastern suburbs of Germantown and Collierville, ten miles away. Indeed, Memphis proper rarely sees as severe weather as those places. And just last night a large cell could be seen on the radar headed directly for metro Memphis only to swerve south and dump on Desoto county.
Meteorologically inclined Dopers, does this sound plausable? Is there any science supporting this theory, or has Memphis just been lucky?