Did you happen to see my post above (#21)? At least one person did think about it.
Well let’s see now:
blizzard You can freeze to death compared to Ca where it is hard to freeze to death in 50 degree weather.
flood (part of a huricane) Drowning of course, car swept away, or a whole city block burned down when the water shorted out the power mains. All of these occured when I was back there during a hurricane. Again tough to have these things happen in Ca where parts of the state only get 15" of rain a year.
drought lack of drinking water. Now droughts happen in CA also, the difference is when I was in NJ and they were talking about a severe drought it was because it had not rained for 2 WEEKS! For a guy from southern Ca where we usually go about 9 months between measurable rain this had me rolling on the floor with laughter.
humidity beyond belief (95degrees plus 100% humidity) Heat stroke, heat exhaustion. Again tough to die from @80 degrees and 25% humidity.
From over here on the left coast it appears that nice = safe
For safeest weather, the nod would have to go to CA or Hawaii. Of course, both states have seismic problems at times, but those aren’t weather.
Now, if the question was “what state is safest from natural disasters?”- then the answer would be simple- compare each states death rates from such. I’d bet that CA & HA would still be towrds the top.
As far as “safe” weather, you can safely assume Arizona is going to get its share of 110 degree days, but very little in the way of hurricanes, flash floods, tornados, or other natural disasters.
There are, as a previous poster said, the occasional wildfire. That said, you can probably avoid that handily by choosing to live in a populated area like Phoenix or Tucson. Wildfires are typically a problem in northern Arizona.
If you can stand the 3 months in the summer where it’s akin to standing on the surface of Mercury, you’ll thank God for the other 9 months when the world is a warm, happy place.
Another vote for New Mexico here. Yeah, we get wildfires… where there’s trees. I think most of the trees in the state are north of Santa Fe. Earthquakes, no, tornadoes, no, hurricanes, no. I’ve seen hail twice in the last 6 years, but it wasn’t big enough to dent a car. I think it scratched paint jobs, though. Blizzards, yeah right.
heh, I actually got hit by Lester in 1992. About one day after I moved to Tucson, wham! It was one of those stories where people think you’re lying when you tell it. “No really, I got hit by a tropical storm in Tucson!”
Here’s a neat site showing the tracks for hurricanes and their lot going back quite awhile. Looking at the last 30 years of storms in the west Pacific it looks like it was quite the abberation. I only see two other storms that did that. Raymond in 1989 and Nora in 1997.
Cool, look at Hurricane #12 in 1975. It almost made it to Alaska. Well I guess not almost but it sure does look close.
Hurricane #10 in 1957 looks like it crossed into New Mexico at hurricane strength. And then #11 the next year was supposed to have gone through Arizona and New Mexico at hurricane strength. Their numbers look a bit fishy though. I bet they measured things differently back then. Or those were really powerful fast moving storms that had enough momentum to make it to those states with winds still above 75. Maybe you could nab the straight dope on how strong they were from some old local newspapers?
There was one in that made it all the way to Texas from the west as a tropical storm. No wonder the predictions can differ so greatly. These things do some freaky things.
I also vote West Virginia. I lived in western PA about 30 miles from the border, and the only thing I would suspect that WV had on us is a slightly milder climate. No earthquakes, hurricanes, or volcanoes. Tornados, forest fires, and floods are rare, and even when they occur are nowhere near the scale as that in many states. Plus, if you’ve got a hot sibling, down in WV you don’t have to worry about those pesky social mores! 
Of course, the downside is that the same mountains that shield WVians from hurricanes, break up tornados, and drain away floods also make travel a pain in the ass. All those little roads twisiting around the mountains contributes to the backwoodsy lack of development.
I think that gaseous is the safest weather state, mainly because of the lower density. Also, a liquid state would mean that it was flooding and a solid state would either mean hail or that the wind is blowing stuff around, either one of which could cause a lot of damage.
What? 
Just to clarify- those are actually three separate tornadoes.
Xenia has unfortunately established itself as something of a tornado magnet in the area. It was struck by an F4 tornado four years ago. Damage was significant, but of course it was nothing compared to 1974.
Otherwise, we’re not that high on the list of states with lots of tornadoes. So everyone come to Ohio… just watch out for Xenia.
You don’t have to go further than the site. If you go to the tracking info on #11 (Kathleen), you will find that the maximum winds of that storm were 70mph (which is now considered below hurricane strength of 74 mph). By the time it reached California (at 32.50N and 116.00 W), it had dropped to 30 mph. In fact, it was 70 for only one log posting, at 25.00N, 114.00W.
I think National Geographic (maybe discover) did a piece on natural disasters, but I don’t rerember the conclusions (I remember a color-coded map)
With all tho forest fires in the west that make news, remeber the worst (in terms of deaths) forest fire in history happened in Wisconsin (the Peshtigo fire)
(actually one of the worst fires of any kind)
Illinois has deaths due to heat, cold, tornadoes, floods, and possibly earthquakes.
(tho relatively safe from malaria and hurricanes)
Brian
I think you have the wrong #11. The one I was talking about doesn’t go near California. The tracking info has it with 75 mph winds from its inception to demise. I assume that either they’re saying it was at 75 or higher for all that time or they called it a hurricane and it was later given a default speed of 75.
I was looking, somehow, at the year 1976. :o
Yeah, that one in the year 1958 looks fishy. In fact it looks more than fishy.