Here in Korea, on a fairly lazy Sunday, it is raining. Perfect weather for this kind of day. There is even a little thunder, just the gentle rolling type, but nothing like the powerful, window-rattling, Thor’s colossal boot-in-your-face kind of thunder that I’ve seen in other places. Parts of Texas, where I grew up, get that kind of thunderstorm sometimes, and I really miss them. I also experienced one incredible storm on a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, during hurricane season.
So my question is this: What parts of the world, especially what cities, get the most violent thunderstorms? I plan to relocate one day, and this just might influence my choice of locations.
By far, the most tornadoes in the world occur in Tornado Alley, I’m not sure exactly what states are included in that–TX, KS, OK, maybe NE, maybe a few others. Anyway, I would think having the most tornadoes would correspond with having the strongest thunderstorms.
In terms of lightening strikes, in the United States, Central Florida (Orlando Area) comes to mind as a hot spot. In my 14 months there, my habitation was struck twice, and trees near my house were struck on a regular basis in the summer.
But in terms of sky-filling awe and terror, nothing compares to a West Texas T-Storm (Abilene area especially).
There’s a tech college in Socorro, New Mexico where they study lightning because so much of it occurs in the mountains there. Kurt Vonnegut’s brother used to work there. It’s a cool little town if you like that kind of place.
The best thunderstorms I’ve ever seen were in SE Pennsylvania…
But going just on the number of tornados (which are linked to the wall-cloud following following the thunderstorm), I’m going to second tornado alley as the place to be!
I think pretty much anywhere east of the Rockies and west of the Mississippi, you’re going to see good thunderstorms. It’s the combination of cold, dry air from the mountains, mixing with hot, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico.
I’ve definitely missed proper thunderboomer storms since I moved out to California. While I was visiting Dallas a few weeks ago, I did get a nice thunderstorm . . . while I was sitting in my plane, stuck until the weather cleared a little bit.
Yeah, I’d say the US high plains get the most majestic thunderclouds I’ve ever seen in the country.
I went to college in Boulder, CO, and lived one summer in an apartment on top of a hill, with a clear view along the front range to the north. Every afternoon I would watch the cumulus form and sail off to the east, growing bigger. Amazing.
But having worked with satellite imagery, I know it’s not the only place in the world. Off the top of my head, I recall that huge blooms of cumulus form over Central America daily during some seasons.
I was going to college in Prescott, AZ and would be able to watch thuderstorms and lightning (even sometimes hit the ground) between PRC and Flagstaff, AZ. You can’t beat the southwest US for clarity and distance.
The North Sea sees some of the most violent storms on the planet but your choise of vantage points is a bit limited and rather out of the way. If you like thunderstorms, and want a good vantage point to see them coming, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas are going to be pretty hard to beat. The weather patterns here are just right to generate some of the biggest storms that form over land anywhere in the world. These storms, of course, have nothing on a tropical hurricane or typhoon but these spend little of their lives over land.
Zebra’s got it right about OK being the place to be to observe storms. Doppler weather radar was also invented here. We get a great range of weather here (-20F and 120F are equally possible, at least one good snowstorm a year, and spring/summer tornadoes are a given), so it’s a wonderfully tricky place to be a meteorologist.
