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The second tornado season kicked off in Oklahoma this week.
The second tornado season kicked off in Oklahoma this week.
Tornadoes can strike virtually anywhere and anytime in the United States, and November is known as a particularly big month for twisters, especially in the Southeast area known as Dixie Alley. But this year, it's the traditional Tornado Alley that has taken the November punches.
At least six tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma Nov. 7, combined with baseball-size hail and wind gusts up to 92 mph (148 kph). One twister destroyed an Oklahoma State University extension office.
The barrage continued last night (Nov. 8) with 10 reported tornadoes across Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.
The main tornado season runs from spring to early summer, but tornadoes can form under a variety of conditions and strike during fall and winter. Tornadoes have killed 548 people so far in 2011, according to the Storm Prediction Center, making this one of the most active tornado years in U.S. history. A massive outbreak in April killed nearly 250 people in Alabama alone. One month later, another massive twister killed more than 150 in Joplin, Mo.
Last November, severe weather was slow to start, but this year the second tornado season is already in full swing.
While Dixie Alley has been mostly quiet, some scientists are starting to suspect that November is in fact the beginning of the Southeast's only tornado season.
"Sometimes you get started in November and you just keep going all the way to April and May," said meteorologist Steve Wilkinson of the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Miss.
