No tornado-free states in the U.S.
Dear Tom,
I was surprised to read that a tornado occurred in the mountains of Colorado
last May. Is there any place in the continental U.S. where tornadoes do not
occur?
Tim Rasmussen
Dear Tim,
Tornadoes have occurred in every U.S. state including Alaska and Hawaii, but
of course they are much more common in portions of the Plains, Midwest and
South in the area known as Tornado Alley. Twisters occur with a much lower
frequency in the West, especially in the chilly coastal region of the
Pacific Northwest. Mountain tornadoes have been documented as high as the
12,000-foot level in California's Sequoia National Park. Roger Edwards of
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center notes that the most violent high-altitude
twister was an F3 storm that struck at the 11,000-foot level in Utah's Unita
Mountains on Aug. 11, 1993. Many meteorologists feel that the number of
mountain twisters is under-reported, going undetected in the remote areas of
mountainous West.