Tornado Alley
The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Minnesota. It is largely a media-driven term although tornado climatologists distinguish peaks in activity in certain areas and storm chasers have long recognized the Great Plains tornado belt.
Tornado myths
It is often thought that tornadoes only occur in North America. The majority of recorded tornadoes do occur in the United States; however, tornadoes have been observed on every continent except Antarctica.