Reply #13: Tornadoes can happen anywhere

[geniph]

There's a combination of things - strong winds, flat ground, upwelling warm moist air, downwelling cold dry air - that are required to produce large tornadoes. (Smaller, less-destructive tornadoes can occur where these things exist on a smaller scale.) There's only a few places on the planet where these conditions consistently exist. The other place I know of that has fairly frequent tornadoes are on the Russian steppes. They happen less frequently there because it doesn't tend to be as warm, and there's not a large source of moist air (the south and southwest winds from the Gulf of Mexico are what cause Tornado Alley to be so productive of supercells).

On average, there are 33 tornadoes per year in the United Kingdom (they're often called whirlwinds there). That's the highest incidence per land area in the world. Most are not severe tornadoes, such as the Great Plains experience.