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One particular tornado-afflicted town, Moore, Oklahoma, managed to increase its building requirements in 2014. The area originates in northern Georgia, travels through South Carolina in a narrow corridor a few hundred feet wide, and then enters North Carolina through . Our gas taxes are cheap, which makes road trips easy to afford. [3], As a colloquial term there are no definitively set boundaries of Tornado Alley, but the area common to most definitions extends from Texas, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, and eastern portions of Colorado and Wyoming. The map clearly shows the frequency of tornados varies enormously with geographic location across the United States, with the "Tornado alley" and parts of the Gulf Coast being particularly susceptible. This new scale has 28 indicators, which helps to take into account much more types of building and quality of buildings. The region often is subject to tornadoes much earlier than the general national peak from May and June, usually from February to Mid-April,[14] and several notorious outbreaks have struck during the late winter and early spring and also in late fall. Some say the average number of tornadoes in the state has increased in recent decades, but Mizzell and others said that likely is due to more precise studies of storm damage. [14] The study found, since 1979, relatively-lower tornado frequency and impacts in parts of the traditional Tornado Alley, especially areas from north-central Texas toward the Houston, TX area, and relatively-higher tornado frequency and impacts in parts of the Mid-South, especially eastern Arkansas, the greater Memphis, TN area and northern Mississippi - all areas near the heart of Dixie Alley - see especially Figure 4. The average number of tornadoes per equal area of land is highest in the southern parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. Of these violent twisters, only a few (0.1% of all tornadoes) achieve EF-5 status, with estimated winds over 200 mph and nearly complete destruction.