Do we have tornadoes in Washington? And why so many in the U.S.??

Yes, we (unfortunately) do experience tornadoes in Washington….. KOMO news in Seattle caught the one on the right; one on left is from WSU in Pullman.

The Ask Marilyn column in Sunday’s Parade Magazine posed this question: Do we really have more tornadoes in the U.S. than around the world? The answer is YES. “The U.S. experiences an average of 1000 tornadoes yearly while Canada, which ranks second, gets only about 100. The rest of the world gets a total of about 200.” 

Why is that because? (The phrase I repeated endlessly as a 3-yr-old.) Marilyn didn’t say; do you know why? And do you think our ancestors would have so happily settled in the American Midwest if they really knew about tornadoes???