Top 10 Tornado Facts

Since moving to Texas, I am surprised to find many Texans think Kansas has more tornado's then any other state. That as I recalled from grade school (5th grade) when we studied tornadoes and had a map in the back of class was/is not the case. However, I needed to find out for sure. That was a long time ago. So I began my search online.
Here is what I found. From the Tornado Project we look at tornadoes from a number of angles and find Kansas is never above 4th place. Take a look at the chart below (that I have recreated from their website):

Rank	Total numbers of tornadoes	Deaths per 10,000 sq miles	Number of killer tornadoes	Total tornado path length per 10,000 sq miles	Killer tornadoes as a % of all tornadoes	Annual tornadoes per 10,000 sq. miles
1	Texas	Massachusetts	Texas	Mississippi	Tennessee	Florida
2	Oklahoma	Mississippi	Oklahoma	Alabama	Kentucky	Oklahoma
3	Florida	Indiana	Arkansas	Oklahoma	Arkansas	Indiana
4	Kansas	Alabama	Alabama	Iowa	Ohio	Iowa
5	Nebraska	Ohio	Mississippi	Illinois	Alabama	Kansas
6	Iowa	Michigan	Illinois	Louisiana	Mississippi	Delaware
7	Missouri	Arkansas	Missouri	Kansas	North Carolina	Louisiana
8	Illinois	Illinois	Indiana	Indiana	Michigan	Mississippi
9	South Dakota	Oklahoma	Louisiana	Nebraska	New York	Nebraska
10	Louisiana	Kentucky	Tennessee	Wisconsin	Massachusetts	Texas

As Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics! The statistics above are what I believe, not the myths that many people believe. Yes, Texas is a part of Tornado alley, even if many here Texas don't think so.

So what about the deadliest Tornadoes? The Tornado Project has statistics for that as well witch I have again recreated below:

Rank	State(s)	Date	Time	Dead	Injured	F-Scale	Town(s)
1	MISSOURI/ILLINOIS/IOWA	March 18, 1925	1:01 PM	695	2027	F5	Murphysboro,Gorham, DeSoto
2	LOUISIANA/MISSISSIPPI	May 7, 1840	1:45 PM	317	109	F?	Nachez
3	MISSOURI/ILLINOIS	May 27, 1896	6:30 PM	255	1000	F4	St. Louis, East St. Louis
4	MISSISSIPPI	April 5, 1936	8:55 PM	216	700	F5	Tupelo
5	GEORGIA	April 6, 1936	8:27 AM	203	1600	F4	Gainesville
6	TEXAS/OKLAHOMA/KANSAS	April 9, 1947	6:05 PM	181	970	F5	Glazier, Higgins, Woodward
7	MISSISSIPPI	April 24, 1908	11:45 AM	143	770	F4	Amite, Pine, Purvis
8	WISCONSIN	June 12, 1899	5:40 PM	117	200	F5	New Richmond
9	MICHIGAN	June 8, 1953	8:30 PM	115	844	F5	Flint
10	TEXAS	May 11, 1953	4:10 PM	114	597	F5	Waco

As you can see, even here Kansas doesn't rank in the top 5, but neither does Texas. One thing though, Kansas doesn't even make the deadliest list without including parts of Texas with it.  So why do people in Texas think that Kansas has more tornadoes? Who knows, because there is no grain of truth to it.

Fast Facts

1. Kansas - Highest number of F5 tornadoes since 1880
2. Iowa - Greatest number of F5's per square mile
3. Alabama - Highest percentage of tornadoes rated as of significant intensity
4. Kentucky - Highest percentage of all tornadoes ranked as violent (F4 or F5)

---------- My name is Kevin, and that's what I think. What do you think? Agree? Disagree? follow us on Twitter

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