Where do most tornadoes originate?

Question

Where do most tornadoes originate?

Answer 1

The most intense tornadoes almost always originate from supercell thunderstorms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercell

For the 1980-1999 time period, here's an animation of where the most tornadoes (highest probability) occurred by date.
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/hazard/tanim/torw8099.html
If this page takes too long to load, you can look at each individual image here. http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/hazard/signew.html

Answer 2

Where Do Tornadoes Originate

Answer 3

Another good question. I'll answer this like the one about Hurricane genesis areas. What you are basically asking and which has not been answered is the meteorological conditions under which these storms may form. As an Air Force meteorologist for many years I use to watch the forecasters who specialized in this kind of forecasting in Omaha, Nebraska as they worked. What they looked for was a region where warm, moist, unstable surface air coming from the south with drier, stronger, westerly air overlaying it may exist. The other thing they looked for would be the possibility of thunderstorm development or movement into that same region. Where these two met and the wind shear from near the surface to cloud level was such that the thunderstorms would experience a cyclonic circulation there that would help to trigger the tornado vortex.

Answer 4

Uh, in the sky; where else? Seriously though, the vast majority of tornadoes in the world originate in "Tornado Alley." It extends on a straight line from the Texas panhandle through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana right up through the lower peninsula of Michigan. Of those states, you'll find that most tornadoes in tornado alley originate in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Answer 5

On the southwest side of the storm.
Note: You can have hail without a tornado but you can't have a tornado without hail.

Answer 6

major thunderstorms duh