Where besides in the USA are tornadoes as common?

Question

I know they are possible almost anywhere, but am curious if there are other places they are as common as here in America.

Answer 1

i read in a tornado book that i bought, tornado alley in the U.S. gets the most tornadoes in the whole world. Conditions are just right for it here. There is nowhere else that tornadoes are common, but tornadoes can happen anywhere

Answer 2

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air which is in contact with both a cumulonimbus (or, in rare cases, cumulus) cloud base and the surface of the earth. Tornadoes can come in many shapes, but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, with the narrow end touching the earth. Often, a cloud of debris encircles the lower portion of the funnel.

Most have winds of 110 mph (175 km/h) or less, are approximately 250 feet (75 meters) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. However, some tornadoes can have winds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), be more than a mile (1.6 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 kilometers).

They have been observed on every continent except Antarctica; however, a significant percentage of the world's tornadoes occur in the United States. This is mostly due to the unique geography of the country, which allows the conditions which breed strong, long-lived storms to occur many times a year. Other areas which commonly experience tornadoes include Australia, south-central Canada, northwestern Europe, Italy, south-central and eastern Asia, east-central South America, and Southern Africa.

A waterspout is a tornado over water. Although most tornadoes over land are associated with severe thunderstorms, the National Weather Service in the United States considers all waterspouts—including "fair weather" waterspouts—to be tornadoes. These less-severe relatives of classic tornadoes are almost always weak (F0 or F1 on the Fujita Scale), and spawn from non-rotating thunderstorms, or even regular summer showers. Typically, waterspouts moving onto land cause little or no damage, and dissipate within minutes. However, strong waterspouts from supercells can cause significant damage if they impact land areas. In addition, strong tornadoes can move over lakes or over the ocean, becoming waterspouts, without losing intensity.

The United States has the most tornadoes of any country, seeing about four times the activity estimated in all of Europe. Many of these form in an area of the central United States known as Tornado Alley. This area extends into Canada, particularly Ontario and the Prairie Provinces, however, activity is less than that of the US. The Netherlands has the highest average number of recorded tornadoes per area of any country (more than 20 annually), followed by the UK (at least 33 per year), but most are small and result in minor damage.

Bangladesh and surrounding areas of eastern India suffer from tornadoes of equal severity to those in the US with more regularity than any other region in the world, however these occur with greater recurrence interval, and tend to be under-reported due to the scarcity of media coverage in a third-world country. The annual human death toll is about 179 deaths per year from tornadoes in Bangladesh, which is much greater than in the US. This is likely due to the density of population, poor quality of construction, lack of tornado safety knowledge, and other factors.

Other areas of the world that have more frequent strong tornadoes include parts of Argentina and southern Brazil as well as South Africa. A fair number of weak and occasionally strong tornadoes occurs annually in Germany, Italy, and China. Australia, France, Spain, Russia, areas of the Middle East, and Japan have a history of multiple damaging tornado events.

Answer 3

Canada, I think there have been a few in the last few yrs in Europe. South Africa, India and Argentina...England.