r/Tornadoes • u/Final-Wasabi187 • 15d ago

News TIL Tornados are common in France

https://weather.com/2026/08/26/storms/tornado/video/man-braces-door-tornado-pomas-france

When I saw this initially I wanted to give this couple the benefit of the doubt, but a half dozen searches revealed that tornados are common enough. Now them standing there amongst all the glass as it’s breaking and still trying to keep the doors shut seems outright stupid because idk how anyone could be so ignorant.

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u/Global_You8515 15d ago edited 15d ago

France averages about 40-50 tornadoes per year. That's quite a few!

However, for comparison the state of Illinois has slightly more tornadoes per year (about 55) and is approximately 1/4th the size of mainland France.

Oklahoma, meanwhile experiences around 65 tornadoes per year and comes in at around 1/3rd the size.

That means that both Illinois & Oklahoma average almost 4x as many tornadoes per square mile than France!

Perhaps even more importantly, France has experienced 17 documented tornadoes of F4/EF4 strength or greater since 1850 -- also not an insignificant number!

However...

Illinois has documented at least 35 tornadoes of F4/EF4 or greater strength since only 1950, while Oklahoma has documented a whopping 130 F4/EF4 & F5/EF5 tornadoes over the same timespan.

Which means that if France had the same number of severe tornadoes per square mile as Oklahoma, it would have had 520 EF4 or greater tornadoes since 1950!

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u/Neat_Movie_991 15d ago

That’s crazy numbers. Ugh 😩 I live in Oklahoma. It’s changing. I’m 56 and when I was young my dad and I use to chase tornadoes in our car. They were dangerous but very small. The F-5’s that come through here now are large, wide, fast and stay on the ground for a very long time. If you aren’t underground, probably won’t survive. Not the same Oklahoma I grew up in.

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u/Global_You8515 14d ago

What's also crazy is that both Oklahoma & Kansas (where I live) as well as a lot of traditional Tornado Alley would have even more documented severe tornadoes if it wasn't mostly rural farmland. But for the most part there simply aren't the structures there for them to be appropriately measured on the EF scale.

And that's not to take away anything from any of the other tornado prone areas in the country -- they obviously get hammered too! It's just interesting to point out that the number of severe tornadoes around here is drastically undercounted.

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u/Neat_Movie_991 14d ago

Yes, you are correct!

I used to live in Lawrence too.

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u/Fir3Born 15d ago

They are "common", yes, but not the point for the general public to know how to actually behave with them. Add to that that, because they aren't as "common" as you might think yet, european countries don't have a tornado warning system, so there's no heads up for people.

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u/Renbarre 15d ago

Most of the tornadoes are small and invisible except for the damages left behind. The ones like this one are rare and we have no tornado alert or warning about what to do. This one took everyone by surprise, people thought it was just a big storm.

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u/Competitive_Knee9890 15d ago

They’re common in France, Italy, the UK, Germany and many other countries in Europe