Just a couple of weeks ago a local elected official told me “we didn’t live in tornado alley”. Well, after today’s storm in which apparently there were some tornados to the west before it got here, the Washington Post remarks on Mardi Gras storm risk & the new tornado alley:

Despite the lack of historic twister activity around New Orleans, tornado climatology indicates they become much more common due north into south central Mississippi and expanding northeast and northwest from northern Alabama across northern Louisiana, southwest Tennessee and into eastern Arkansas.

As you can see by the map they posted from a recent study, one pocket of this new tornado alley, nicknamed Dixie Alley, is in south Georgia.

The article goes on to quote a different study that said:

…Dixie Alley has the highest frequency of long-track F3 to F5 tornadoes, making it the most active region in the United States. … Based on this analysis, colloquial tornado alley fails to represent the areas of highest activity in the United States, indicating that a more comprehensive analysis of additional tornado alleys in the United States by the NWS may be needed in the future.

So yes, we do live in the new tornado alley.

Sure would be nice for people around here to have NOAA Weather Radios.

-jsq

PS: Nothing but wind and rain on my hill. This time.

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