Over the past few years there have been discussions about what states are and aren’t a part of Tornado Alley. Tornado Alley is made up of states in the midwest and consists of multiple states including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota. Another area that frequently has tornadoes is known as Dixie Alley. This area consists of Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Data recorded showing the average number of tornadoes over the last few decades suggests that there should be a “Carolina Alley” as North Carolina ranks at number 17 in Tornadoes per year, which puts NC in the top 35% of states with tornadoes. North Carolina has around 26 confirmed tornadoes per year with the peak month’s being from March to June. North Carolina also ranks number 20 for most tornadoes over the past 60 years spanning from 1950 to 2011. Below we have provided a heat map showing the last 50-60 years of data for tornadoes in North Carolina and where they have been most prominent within the state. The interesting portion that is most notable on this heat map is that a lot of North Carolina’s metropolitan areas are centered in the most heavily hit areas. Most of these storm also occurred between 3-7 p.m. with most major tornadoes (F3-F4) occurring between 4-8 p.m. The lower map illustrates the areas affected by a major Tornado (F3-F4.) With this being shown we believe the areas in yellow and red on map one to be the most dangerous areas for tornadoes according to our mapping data though tornadoes occur in all 100 counties of North Carolina.
