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.
1998 Eastern tornado outbreak
The 1998 Eastern Tornado Outbreak stands out, because it spawned an unusually high number of supercell thunderstorms, occurrences of damaging winds and hail, and tornadoes, in the central Appalachian Mountain area, where most residents were unaccustomed to experiencing such violent thunderstorms that are commonly believed to only occur in Tornado Alley in the central part of the United States.