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 outbreak of April 27–28, 2002
The Tornado outbreak of April 27–28, 2002 was a widespread outbreak that afectted areas of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska were affected on April 27. More tornadoes were reported in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia on the following day, April 28.