No other country in the world has more tornadoes than the United States. In an average year, 800 tornadoes are reported in the United States, resulting in 80 deaths and over 1,500 injuries. Tornadoes are defined as violently rotating columns of air extending from a thunderstorms to the ground. Tornadoes are found most frequently in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

While most tornadoes (69%) have winds of less than 100 miles an hour, they can be much much stronger. Violent tornadoes (winds greater than 205 miles an hour) account for only 2% of all tornadoes, they cause 70% of all tornado deaths. In 1931, a tornado in Minnesota lifted an 83-ton railroad train with 117 passengers and carried it more than 80 feet! Once a tornado in Oklahoma carried a motel sign 30 miles and dropped it in Arkansas! In 1975 a Mississippi tornado carried a home freezer more than one mile!