Can we include the Show-Me state in "Tornado Alley"?

NEW BLOOMFIELD — It's not exactly a secret. The United States experiences some of the most extreme weather on the planet. That includes severe weather in the form of damaging wind gusts, large hail, and tornadoes. There's a good reason for that.

We sit in a very unique scenario where we have multiple air masses that collide. Cold air from the northwest, warm and dry air from the southwest, and warm humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. Here in Missouri, we experience that warm and humid air coming up from the south.

The collision of these three air masses along with the jet stream, all helps to develop low-pressure systems and boundaries associated with that. All of these ingredients factor into the two most known tornado hotbeds in the United States. Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley. Most Tornado Alley maps you find on the internet will not include states like Iowa, Missouri, or Arkansas. Over the last 20+ years, we have evidence that Tornado Alley has potentially shifted east.

We are including Missouri in the discussion of Tornado Alley. The greatest amounts of tornadoes occur in these areas. Let's take a closer look at the state of Missouri.

We will focus on tornado numbers over the last ten years based on National Weather Service office coverage areas.

The National Weather Service in Kansas City has seen 104 tornadoes from 2012 to 2021.

The NWS in Springfield has seen 198 in the same time, with the NWS in St. Louis seeing 70 tornadoes in this time frame.

The Springfield office does cover a considerable area in Missouri, which may have helped with the large disparity in the number of tornadoes seen in the last 10 years compared to the other offices' Missouri counties.

While researching this data, we found quite a bit of interesting facts about Missouri concerning tornadoes.

Contributing to our inclusion of Missouri into Tornado Alley. From 2012 to 2021, Missouri saw a total of 514 tornadoes.

If you look at tornadoes dating back to 2000, Missouri is averaging about 61 tornadoes per year. This is a substantial increase compared to the per year numbers from 1991 to 2010., when Missouri averaged 45 tornadoes per year.

Overall through the decades, Missouri is averaging 10 or more tornadoes each year than it used to.

For some reference, other states that have seen a similar increase to Missouri's since 2000 include Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

With all of this data presented, it's always important to be prepared for any severe weather event. Have multiple ways to receive weather warnings, and always stay in tuned to the KRCG 13 Weather Authority team of Zach Paul, Joe Farrell, and Chad Crilley on social media, on-air, and online at krcgtv.com/weather