# Tornadoes native only to USA?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 3, 2000, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246 "2000-03-03T05:52:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheBus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBus)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2000, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/1 "2000-03-03T05:52:00Z")
(Originally sent to Cecil, but I’m too sleepy to edit this right now.)
With the recent tornadoes in Georgia and being in the general area of Tornado Alley myself (though thankfully nowhere close to a trailer park), I have been wondering if torndoes are a weather phenomenon unique to the United States. Generally, the US media reports on hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, unusually heavy rains or snows, and other unusual happenings around the world, but I can’t recall an instance of reporting on tornadoes anywhere else. If tornadoes either happen only or just primarily in the U.S., what is so special (or maybe we should think ‘unlucky’) about this part of the world?
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### Author:  [@ubermensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ubermensch)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2000, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/2 "2000-03-03T06:16:00Z")
the us is so big, that in it you can find almost every type of weather phenomena. but no, england also gets tornadoes, but rarely. and i’m sure it happens other places where high winds and changing temperatures occur.
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### Author:  [@neuro-trash\_grrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neuro-trash_grrrl)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/3 "2000-03-03T06:25:00Z")
From the Neuro-Trash Grrrl Compendium of Stuff I Read a Long Time Ago and Unsubstantiated Assumptions:
We all know that tornadoes are pretty frequent in North America. I seem to remember that tornadoes are fairly common in Australia as well, but for some reason, are rarer on every other continent. It probably has something to do with the fact that North America and Australia are both positioned rather neatly between the polar regions and the equatorial regions, thus making possible the temperature inversions that produce tornadoes. The rest can probably be attributed to air currents and geographical features.
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An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
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### Author:  [@Kilgore\_Trout\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilgore_Trout_1)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2000, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/4 "2000-03-03T06:31:00Z")
“_In January of 1999, we also began a page on worldwide tornadoes._”
not sure where the worldwide site is, but here:
[http://tornadoproject.com/alltorns/alltorns.htm#top](http://tornadoproject.com/alltorns/alltorns.htm#top)
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_what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox_
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### Author:  [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/5 "2000-03-05T06:36:00Z")
Southern Ontario is also prone to tornado activity in the summertime.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/6 "2000-03-05T06:50:00Z")
Tornadoes are common in the Prairie Provinces of Canada. In fact, one of the biggest tornadoes on record (in terms of the width of the funnel cloud) hit Edmonton back in 1987.
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and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel to toe
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2000, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/7 "2000-03-04T19:45:00Z")
There are certainly similar weather phenomena over oceans. Usually called waterspouts, if I remember correctly.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2000, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/8 "2000-03-04T20:30:00Z")
Tornados do occur everywhere but they are abundant in NA due to the Gulf Coast warm air rising north and colder arctic air moving south. The hot air and cold air mix. The hot air rising the cold falling they twist. Bam a twister. Ok that is oversimplified but you get the idea. Most other areas of the world don’t have this weather pattern over such a large area at such length. That is why they are infrequent elsewhere.
You’ll note even in the USA most tornados occur in the central part not the west or east where the Gulf Coast Air and Arctic Air don’t mix as readily
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### Author:  [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/9 "2000-03-05T00:35:00Z")
Sheesh, this same conversation came up on MFSD, and it makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Didn’t ANYONE hear about the tornado in India last year that killed thousands of people?
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~Harborina
“Don’t Do It.”
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Masterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Masterson)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/10 "2000-03-05T01:36:00Z")
markxxx is right! but the land in tornado alley is flat and enormous, and thus provides little resistance to hot and cold air interactions. More tornados, and the most powerful tornados occur in “Tornado Alley” than anywhere else in the world, by a pretty big margin too.
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### Author:  [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/11 "2000-03-05T02:49:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Didn’t ANYONE hear about the tornado in India last year that killed thousands of people?
Are you sure that wasn’t a cyclone? (Just asking; I can’t remember for certain, myself).
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### Author:  [@Kilgore\_Trout\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilgore_Trout_1)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/12 "2000-03-05T03:27:00Z")
i thought that tornadoes and cyclones were the same thing.
i heard that they were tornadoes in some parts of the world, and cyclones in others.
no?
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_what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox_
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### Author:  [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/13 "2000-03-05T03:31:00Z")
I thought cyclones and hurricanes were the same thing, “cyclone” being used predominantly for hurricanes originating in the Pacific. I could be wrong.
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### Author:  [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/14 "2000-03-05T03:37:00Z")
I just looked it up. I didn’t know this, and thought it was interesting. “Hurricanes” have the following names in the following regions:
Hurricane–Atlantic Ocean
Typhoon–Pacific Ocean
Cyclone–Indian Ocean
Baguio–the Philippines.
Don’t know what’s special about the Philippines.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/15 "2000-03-05T03:52:00Z")
There are tornados all over the Earth, but most of them occur in “Tornado Alley” in the U.S. Markxxx mentioned the warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and the cold dry Canadian airmass colliding. The other important factor is the Rocky Mountains.
Here’s what the NOAA [http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/NWSTornado/](http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/NWSTornado/) has to say about them:
> [@](#):
>
> During the spring in the Central Plains, thunderstorms frequently develop along a “dryline,” which separates very warm, moist air to the east from hot, dry air to the west. Tornado-producing thunderstorms may form as the dryline moves east during the afternoon hours.
>
> Along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, in the Texas panhandle, and in the southern High Plains, thunderstorms frequently form as air near the ground flows “upslope” toward higher terrain. If other favorable conditions exist, these thunderstorms can produce tornadoes.
They mention “warm, moist air” and “hot dry air”, but I’ve always heard the Gulf/Canadian explanation.
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### Author:  [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/16 "2000-03-05T04:27:00Z")
[Apparently](http://www.torro.org.uk/) the United Kingdom has the “highest frequency of reported tornadoes per unit area in the world.”
Aside from the US and the UK, tornados have touched down in Russia, Pakistan, South Africa, Italy, UK, Cuba, China, Chad, Canada, Brazil, Bangladesh and Argentina. See [this](http://www.basedn.freeserve.co.uk/tornado.htm) site.
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**Gypsy** : Tom, I don’t get you.
**Tom Servo** : Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
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### Author:  [@Luckie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Luckie)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/17 "2000-03-05T05:31:00Z")
\<\\>
well, i followed the link, and the website does infact make that claim.
but this is contrary to everything i’ve ever heard and i have trouble swallowing it.
perhaps they mean that the UK has more tornado’s per unit area than any other COUNTRY ( ie, you can’t just look at oklahoma; you would have to count all of the US together including alaska ).
I have always understood that tornado alley was truely unique.
-luckie
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/18 "2000-03-05T15:06:00Z")
I read the claim, but I didn’t see any stats to back it up. I didn’t explore the links though.
Being a fairly large country, the number of tornados compared to the total area is rather small; but according to the Discovery Channel, IIRC, the U.S. has the most tornados in terms of absolute numbers.
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### Author:  [@TheBus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBus)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/19 "2000-03-05T19:14:00Z")
My motivation in originally posing this question was the fact that nearly everything we hear about tornadoes in the news and other shows in the U.S.A has to do with tornadoes in the U.S. Johnny L.A.'s assertion that the U.S. has the most in absolute numbers certainly fits right in with this lack of info on anywhere else.
This leads me to wonder why tornadoes elsewhere simply do not register in my memory of news reporting and science TV. It’s apparent from the link posted by Alphagene that very deadly tornadoes have struck Bangladesh within the last 5 years. Perhaps these strike in conjunction with cyclones there? In that case, I would expect the sustained reporting on cyclones would stand out in my mind.
Speaking of Bangladesh, they seem to be a disaster prone area. Cyclones smash in there and monsoon rains seem to strike them regularly as well. I remember reports of flooding violent enough to wash people out to sea.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornadoes-native-only-to-usa/8246/20 "2000-03-05T19:38:00Z")
I wonder how many U.S. tornados are reported in, say, Johannesburg? Usually reports of such things are in foreign news when it’s an unusual disaster. A case in point: Japan has lots and lots of earthquakes. So does California. But unless it’s a really big one there’s not much mention of it. When was the last time a Japanese earthquake was reported on the local news? Or even the national news? Every other morning there is a report of an earthquake on Southern California news. Has anyone outside of the area heard of them?
Tornados occur worldwide; but again, according to the Discovery Channel IIRC, the unique arrangement of the geography of North America causes the number of tornados in the “Tornado Alley” part of the American plains to be greater than elsewhere.
Speaking of interesting weather (as if any weather were uninteresting – except for bloody sunshine day after day after day after…) I’ve just started reading _Airman’s Oddysey_ by Antoine de St. Exupéry. In _Wind, Sand and Stars_ he tells of a gale blowing off Mt. Salamanca in South America. “Blue skies and white seas.” He says it blew him out to sea and tossed him about. Does anyone know what such a storm is called? How do they form?
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