Tornado kiosks · point recurrence by state, 1950 to 2025

Odds of a Direct Hit

Forget the county warning. Plant a stake in the ground: how long, on average, until a tornado's damage path passes over that exact spot? Every tornado since 1950 has a recorded path length and width. Add up the ground each state's tornadoes have actually swept, divide by the state's land area, and you get a point recurrence interval.

Data: TerraPulse tor dex (SPC tornado history cross-matched with NCEI Storm Events; US public domain), exported 2026-09-11, 1950 to 2025. Swept area is path length times path width per tornado, treated as a rectangle; SPC recorded mean width before 1995 and maximum width after, so recent areas run somewhat high (the Width Creep kiosk measures how much). Multi-state tracks are counted in the state where they began. Recurrence interval = 76 years times state land area divided by swept area; 30-year odds assume a constant rate, 1 - (1 - 1/T)³⁰. Rating thresholds mix F and EF scales. This measures the chance a damage path crosses a point, not the chance of damage at that point.