While the well-known section of the Great Plains known as Tornado Alley has slid into its off season, another, lesser-known part of the country is poised for action. Extending from Arkansas and Louisiana east through Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, and western Georgia, the Dixie Alley is rapidly approaching its prime season. For that matter, while March, April, and May are the three most active tornado months in the Southeast, with April being the peak, the tornado machine never really shuts down in Dixie Alley the way it does in the Great Plains.
In fact, after checking out a NOAA slide presentation titled “A Comparison of Tornado Statistics from Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley” by Alan Gerard, John Gagan, and John Gordon, I”m thinking that I need to give much more serious consideration to chasing in Dixie Alley.
There are, of course, a few obvious drawbacks to that idea. The seasonal max offers less sunlight to chase by. The extensive forests suggest to me that visibility is far more limited than in the wide-open expanses of the Plains. And tornadoes that occur in Dixie Alley are more likely to be night-time events than those that occur in Tornado Alley. Bottom line: there”s a big difference between available storms and chaseable storms. That”s the trade-off, and in many cases it may be the deal-breaker.
This being understood, the storms start to increase in February and could provide some opportunities which I shouldn”t dismiss as readily as I have in the past. This is something to discuss with my buddy Bill. I know he”s as hungry for storms as I am, and this could be a remedy.
