Tornado in MA??

Although we've had a lot of crazy weather lately, I was definitely not expecting to hear of a tornado warning here in Massachusetts. I actually missed the warning as I was on vacation in Maine (posts about that soon!), but my housemate told me about it when I got back last night. Tornado warning! That is definitely not something I have ever expected to experience anywhere that I've lived, much less here.

Apparently, however, MA ranks number 35 in states for tornado frequency, according to the Disaster Center website. This website also states that MA has an average of 3 tornadoes per year, based on data from 1950-1995. Since this was my first tornado warning since moving here (at least that I'm aware of), I supposed that means many of these tornadoes do not happen in this area (we are in a mountainous region, after all).

Finding the Virginia webpage from the same site, however, shows that it has an average of 6 tornadoes a year and is ranked number 29. I remember one tornado/strong storm from when I was in middle school. The other storms I remember were not quite tornado strength, although we did have to go into the basement for many of them.

Well, I suppose tornadoes are not exactly something I should fret about, considering that I've moved to a state with fewer of them, and I've only really experienced 1 in VA. Still, I hope we don't have any more tornado watches or warnings any time soon, especially since our only real warning system is weather.com.