The year is off to a quiet start as far as tornadoes are concerned, but that may not last long. On March 8, a twister ripped through western Oklahoma, and storm chasers captured the drama on video. The chart below shows that tornado activity typically starts gaining steam in March and spikes as we get closer to summer.
The states that bear the brunt of the violent weather include Florida and those that lie in Tornado Alley, a broad swath of the southern Great Plains. No state is completely tornado-free. Even Alaska, which averaged zero tornadoes a year during the period covered by the map below, saw a rare tornado in 2005.





