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Denver is especially prone to snow hazards like bad drivers and the city failing to properly salt the roads. Mountain roads are even more dangerous with heavier snowfall and steepness.
In the spring and summer, hailstorms with tons a lightning are not uncommon. Although Tornadoes in DEN are rare, warnings do occasionally come up. I feel the city has more intense Thunderstorms that escalate up to Tornadic standards rather quickly.
We get more major hurricanes than any state outside the gulf. We get tornadoes pretty much every year, although they're usually not as big or strong as the ones in the great plains.
Ice storms are another big nuisance that crops up every several years. There's generally one every once in a while that knocks out power to a large chunk of the state. The last major one we had was in the winter of 2002-2003. There's been an unsettling lack of them ever since. Maybe global warming has put a stop to those. In which case, I'd expect more of the first two categories, and less of the third.
Actually if you look up some stats, Raleigh has had some AWFUL Tornadoes especially during the spring and fall months. Not uncommon for F3 / F4 Tornadoes that kill people from time to time.
I grew up in NJ and Tornadoes are extremely rare. They are much worse in nearby PA and upstate NY.
Definitely tornadoes in the Birmingham, AL area. We're one of the worst locations for intense, large, deadly twisters. The metro area was hit by an F4 in 1957, an F5 in 1977, an F5 in 1998, and a high end EF4 in 2011 (the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado).
It's funny, unless you are from the PNW and are well aware of the Cascadia fault almost any other American would hardly think of Seattle being associated with earthquakes. You will always here "I could never live in California because of the earthquakes", while in fact, a devastating earthquake in Seattle is far more likely than in San Diego, even as we get plenty of small to medium size shakers we are far away from the San Andreas fault so the risk here is pretty low for The Big One.
In salt lake we have a fault running through the valley. The valley is a former lake bed so not stable soil. If we have a big quake they call it liquifaxtion and the entire valley is flooded.
Earthquakes- California cities (ex San Francisco & Low Angeles)
Hurricanes- coastal cities on the Gulf & Atlantic coasts (ex New Orleans, Miami, Tampa, Houston, Jacksonville, Hampton Roads Va, Wilmington NC, Mobile, Orlando)
Tornados- Great Plains cities (ex Oklahoma City, Kansas City, St Louis, Omaha, Tulsa, Dallas, Memphis, Indianapolis)
Blizzards- cities in the upper midwest and interior northeast (ex Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston)
I would never really call a blizzard a natural disaster though. They happen most years here in the Midwest, but you just hear about them in advance, then it snows, you shovel it and go back to work/school. There's no "disaster" in them, it's just a weather event that you then forget about a week after it happens.
I would say ice storms can be a big problem and closer to a "disaster", but those are mostly in the south, not the Midwest.
I would never really call a blizzard a natural disaster though. They happen most years here in the Midwest, but you just hear about them in advance, then it snows, you shovel it and go back to work/school. There's no "disaster" in them, it's just a weather event that you then forget about a week after it happens.
I would say ice storms can be a big problem and closer to a "disaster", but those are mostly in the south, not the Midwest.
It's a hazard if you get trapped in a blizzard in your car, or if your power goes out and freeze to death in some remote area. I agree that in general it's not on the same level as Hurricanes or Tornadoes.
Blizzards, Hail, Wind Storms, Flash Floods, Wildfires, More Hail, Tornados east of town, Drought, Lots More Hail.
About it. Great place to live though!!
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