Countries With Most Tornadoes In The World – Top 10 Listed

Is America the only Country that gets Hit by Tornadoes

Considering the number of times (more than 1000), the USA gets hit by tornadoes. One can be forgiven to think that tornadoes are the sole property of the United States of America. But that’s not the case.

Apart from America, many other countries with most tornadoes have the misfortune of getting hit frequently. But news of tornadoes in other parts of the world doesn’t get as much coverage as America. Most countries don’t even bother to record most of their tornadoes.

However, after researching this topic, we have drawn up a list of countries with the most tornadoes in the world.

Top Countries With Most Tornadoes List of 2022

New Zealand

According to the New Zealand mat office, about 20 waterspouts and tornadoes occur in the country per year. Most of the tornadoes appear on the north island of the country.

The west coast of Taranaki is another hotspot for tornadoes as it has been struck 12 times from 1961-1975. However, most of them are weak waterspouts and are not powerful enough to cause substantial damage to lives and property.

Nonetheless, fatalities have happened, albeit rarely, and the most recent cases of tornadoes associated with fatalities are Hobsonville in 2012 (3 deaths) and Albany in 2011 (1 death).

Australia

There’s a common misconception that Australia does not have many tornadoes, which is certainly not true. It has about 16 tornadoes per year, even after excluding the waterspouts, which are pretty common. The south-western coast of Western Australia is one of the hot spots for tornadoes.

Lennox Head village of New South Wales is one of Australia’s most vulnerable places to tornadoes. Australia experienced its deadliest tornado in 1971 when it struck Kin Kin, a town situated near southeast Queensland, and killed 3 people.

England

When we think of England, the image that comes to our mind is a pleasant and green land and not any tornadoes. However, tornadoes are pretty common in this country. It has the misfortune of having more tornadoes per mile than any other countries including the USA.

Reading and London endure most twisters as the River Thames in London’s tornado valley. On average, there are about 34 tornado sightings each year in England. That means 2.2 tornadoes per 10,000km sq.

In Birmingham (2005) and London (2006), Tornadoes caused millions of damage. However, there were no casualties.

Japan

Tornadoes, known as “Tatsumaki” in Japan, weren’t pretty common in earlier times. However, lately, the number of tornadoes has been increasing gradually.

Japan has an average of around 20 tornadoes per year. The country experienced its most destructive tornado in 2006 when a twister struck Seroma on Hokkaido Island and killed 9 people.

India

The delta region has been hit by some of the strongest and violent tornadoes over the past 200 years.

India witnessed the devastating fury of a tornado first-hand in 1963. The tornado killed more than 100 people in northwest Assam on April 19, 1963. Apart from killing tens of people, it also caused more than 3700 families to go homeless.

Moreover, around 20 people lost their lives in a recent tornado that hit the southern part of India in 2009.

Bangladesh

Outside of India, Bangladesh has the strongest and most dangerous tornadoes in the world due to its geographical location. It has a long history of tornadoes. 

In 1964, 500 people lost their lives due to a tornado in the Khulna district. Moreover, on 26 April 1989, Bangladesh witnessed the deadliest tornado in the world’s history, which caused more than 1300 people in the Manikganj district. In addition, about 12,000 people were injured, and 80,000 were left homeless.

South Africa

Yes, tornadoes happen in Africa too. However, South Africa is the only country in the African continent ever to report a violent tornado.

Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, was nearly killed when an intense tornado hit the Eastern Cape on December 16, 1998. He saved himself by lying on the ground while his bodyguards piled on him.

Moreover, the country lost 31 of its citizens in one of its deadliest tornado outbreaks in Albertynesville and Paynesville on December 2, 1952.

Argentina

Argentina, a country famous for soccer, is also a frequent target for ferocious tornadoes. Around 368 tornadoes had hit it from 1930-1979. That means it has about 7 tornadoes per year.

On January 10, 1973, a powerful tornado ripped through the town of San Justo and killed at least 63 people and wounded more than 300 people.

It is also the costliest and deadliest tornado till now.

Canada

Canada is only second to America when it comes to having the most tornadoes per year. It has an average of 100 tornadoes per year.

Saskatchewan has the highest number of tornadoes (18) among its provinces, followed by Alberta and Ontario at 15 and 12 per year.

An F5 tornado, which is also the strongest tornado in the country’s history, tore through Elie, Manitoba, on June 22, 2007. Although several houses were destroyed, there were no casualties or injuries. Now that Canada has embraced the enhanced Fujita scale, we will never see a tornado with an F5 rating.

USA

The United States of America experiences the highest number of tornadoes globally, with an average of more than 1200 tornadoes per year. There are several reasons behind it. One of the chief reasons behind so many tornadoes is:

The “tornado alley” of the United States is where warm moist air collides with cool, dry air—two ingredients vital for developing a tornado. Another reason is that America is a huge country, and, naturally, the more land you have, the more natural disasters will come your way.

America faced its deadliest tornado on March 18, 1925, when the tri-state tornado swept through the Midwestern and Southern U.S.A and killed 695 people.

Later in 1974, America saw the most extensive tornado outbreak ever, which affected large parts of the U.S and even extended to some parts of Ontario in Canada. More than 300 people lost their lives during the outbreak, known in the history of the 1974 super outbreak.