TWISTER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!

[Bilbo]

Who would have believed it - its none other than the UK! The other day we had a bad one in North London and one along the coast from me in Southampton.

Until I read the facts in a sensible newspaper I would have guessed the Carribean.

The police have said that its a miracle no one was killed or seriously injured.

Roofs have gone and entire house walls are down so you can see right into the rooms.

The scientific explanation it seems is due to our latitude which means that arctic cold weather gets sucked down from the North and can collide with warm weather from Southern Europe.

How curious that you can get both at the same time indeed a few years back we had a mini tornado here and several trees went down including a well established Acacia baileyana var Purpurea in my garden and several greenhouses were badly damaged.

Regardez

Juan

[Daryl]

Just click your heels and say 'there's no place like home'

Seems like the same formula as central US with the cold air masses etc.

Glad we don't get too many around these parts...

[NBTX11]

The central parts of the US experience by far the most tornados of any where on earth.  Basically tornado alley is from Nebraska down to North Texas.  Over 75% of all the world's tornado's occur in the U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado

"They have been observed on every continent except Antarctica; however, a significant percentage of the world's tornadoes occur in the United States.[4] (approximately 75% of all that take place) This is mostly due to the unique geography of the country, which allows the conditions which breed strong, long-lived storms to occur many times a year. Other areas which commonly experience tornadoes include New Zealand, western and southeastern Australia, south-central Canada, northwestern Europe, Italy, south-central and eastern Asia, east-central South America, and Southern Africa."

[NBTX11]

Tornado Alley.

[BS Man about Palms]

Jim- I would have thought that alley would be further to the right...PLUS, I thought they were attracted to trailer parks!!!!!!

[NBTX11]

I think it's pretty accurate.  I used to live in N. TX along the OK border, and every spring, there would be HUGE Violent T-Storms spawning numerous tornados.  Every spring, you could bank on it.

[SunnyFl]

There's also a "Dixie Alley" that - though not as bad as the infamous Tornado Alley - does get its share of twisters.  Dunno the exact borders of it, but it includes AR, AL, southern GA.  And Florida's no stranger to them either, as the Feb '98 outbreak sadly demonstrated.