# Does an area's topography affect the likelihood of a tornado touching down?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-areas-topography-affect-the-likelihood-of-a-tornado-touching-down/621460>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 10, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-areas-topography-affect-the-likelihood-of-a-tornado-touching-down/621460 "2012-05-10T01:42:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![cutman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@cutman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cutman74)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-areas-topography-affect-the-likelihood-of-a-tornado-touching-down/621460/1 "2012-05-10T01:42:44Z")

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I live just East of the Mississippi valley in Illinois, just on the lea side of the bluffs that flank the river on either side. Through many years of observation, it seems to me that if a tornado forms in the river bottoms, by the time it gets near us that it skips over us and lands 5-10 miles to the East NE,SE, depending on the direction of the storm. Is this just my imagination, or am I protected in some way by the topography of the land and its relation to the storm? I am of the mind that if a tornado was to form directly above us and drop down right here we’d be toast. Excepting that, I’m just wondering,“does a tornado hug the ground, or does it skip and jump according to the terrain?”

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-areas-topography-affect-the-likelihood-of-a-tornado-touching-down/621460/2 "2012-05-10T01:47:46Z")

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Closed duplicate.