Arkansas Town Most Likely to Get Hit By a Tornado

Remember that saying, April showers bring May flowers but it also brings tornados to the state of Arkansas.

The month of April is an active period for severe weather across the state, Arkansas averages about 45 tornados a year within the last decade. Most of those tornados were in the western part of the state which is odd because that is not considered tornado alley.

Fayetteville

The town most likely to get hit by a tornado is Fayetteville, which may surprise a lot of folks, according to analysis from the Tornado Index Rate for Arkansas. Fayetteville is likely to get 73% of tornados which experts tend to debate because of the state's proximity to the eastern border of Oklahoma, according to the A-Z Animals website.

What makes Arkansas vulnerable to tornadic weather is the warm, moist air that the state gets from the Gulf of Mexico and the southern Gulf states of Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Arkansas falls in the direct path of the shifting warm air in a northerly direction creating the perfect storm needed to create a tornado.

Dixie Alley

While Fayetteville may not be in Tornado Alley,  Dixie Alley is the name given for their version because it has more twisters than any other part of the Natural State. At least 87 tornadoes in Fayetteville have occurred since the 1950s and most on record were F2s or higher.

An F5 tornado remains the strongest tornado with damaging winds up to 261 miles per hour, according to the Fujita scale or F-scale. Usually, an F-5 tornado is very devastating carving out a larger path or swath when on the ground and could go for several miles.

The good news is that Fayetteville, Arkansas has never experienced a tornado higher than an F-2 to date but remains very high on the risk list for more tornados. An average of two tornados per year is average in the Fayetteville region and the best that folks can do is stay alert when impending weather threatens and be prepared when and if it happens.