(AP) — A rare and powerful tornado sent residents of a coastal city in Virginia fleeing for cover over the weekend as it peeled roofs from buildings and pushed homes from their foundations. It was the most powerful tornado ever to hit Virginia Beach, Virginia, officials confirmed Monday.
Virginia average 10 tornados a year.
Tornadoes are common in Virginia. They have hit the Commonwealth in every month of the year and in every part of the state.
There's a primary “Tornado Alley” in eastern and northern Virginia that includes Richmond, the Tidewater and the D.C. metro area.
A number of Florida's tornadoes occur along the edge of hurricanes that strike the state. The state with the highest number of strong tornadoes per unit area is Oklahoma, with Cleveland County having the most tornadoes per square mile.
When thinking about tornado chasing, places that generally come to mind are typically Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, in the heart of “tornado alley.” Knowing that tornadoes happen all around the country, there are other areas that often get overlooked.
“TORNADO ALLEY”
While tornadoes are most common in the central part of the U.S. known as “Tornado Alley,” Virginia has seen it's fair share of twisters.
Virginia Hurricane Climatology. Statistics. On average, a tropical storm, or its remnants, can be expected to impact the Old Dominion yearly, with hurricanes expected once every 2.3 years. These averages are competitive to what is seen down south along the Gulf coast, even though major hurricanes are far more rare.
So, does it snow in Virginia? Virginia has a humid subtropical climate where winters are cold and snowy. It snows heavily in the mountain areas of Virginia, and places such as the Appalachian Mountains can record up to 36.6 inches (929.64 millimeters) of snow in a typical winter.
Virginia typically doesn't see extremely strong tornadoes. There have only been two reported EF4 tornadoes since 1950 and no recorded EF5's.
Tornado Alley is a nickname given to a region in the U.S. where tornadoes are common. Tornado Alley generally begins in the Southern plains and extends northward through the upper Midwest to the Canadian border. States commonly associated with Tornado Alley include Texas, Kansas and Nebraska.
May is historically the most active month for tornadoes, averaging 294 twisters yearly. That's followed by April and June, each with an average of 212 tornadoes. Average tornadoes by month. Keep in mind, these are just averages based on a 30-year period, and the weather doesn't always follow what's considered average.
All tornadoes produce damage, but the most violent ones can cause automobiles to become airborne, rip homes to shreds, and turn broken glass and other debris into lethal missiles. The biggest tornado threat to human beings is from flying debris in the wind.
The safest place during a tornado is the interior part of a basement. If your home does not have a basement, go to an interior room without windows on the lowest possible floor.
Officially, the widest tornado on record is the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado of May 31, 2013 with a width of 2.6 miles (4.2 km) at its peak.
Tornado Alley is a region of the United States that is regularly hit with tornados. Tornado Alley covers the Great Plains and is centered on eastern Kansas and Oklahoma and also included parts of the surrounding states, where tornados are most frequent.
Tornado Capital General Information
Founded in January 2021, Tornado Capital is a Venture Capital based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Oklahoma is generally known as the heart of Tornado Alley, as it lays at the centre of storm activity in the Great Plains. Oklahoma City, the state's largest metropolitan area, is familiar with violent storms that usually begin in the countryside and travel close to developed land.
Map of average annual tornadoes from 2018 to 2022. Mississippi, Texas, Alabama are darkest, at 115, 96, 89 respectively. The whole west of the US is very light, as well as the northeast. Alaska and Hawaii are the only states without a tornado in the past five years.
Hawaii has only received 40 confirmed tornadoes in its history, and no deaths have been associated with them. Their most costly tornado occurred on Jan. 28, 1971, with around $2.5 million worth of damages.
No other part of the world has the combination of a warm, moist air source on the equatorward side and a wide, high range of mountains to the west that extends for thousands of kilometers from north to south that provides the right atmospheric conditions for frequent tornadoes.