1. Most tornadoes form in a belt from Nebraska southward through central Texas known as Tornado Alley and in the Southeast.

2. A tornado is officially defined as an intense, rotating column of air extending from the base of a thunderstorm cloud to the ground.

3. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center issues a tornado watch when conditions are right for twisters in any part of the USA.

4. A hurricane is a type of tropical cyclone-the general term for all circulating weather systems (counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere) that occurs over tropical waters.

5. In 1953. In that year, this Nation's weather services began using female names for storms.

6. The three basic types are: Statistical, Dynamical or Combination. Statistical models forecast the future by using current information about the hurricane and comparing it to historical knowledge about the behavior of similar tropical cyclones. The historical record for storms over the north

Atlantic begins in 1871, while the record for storms for the east Pacific extends back to 1945. Dynamical models work differently. They are designed to use the results of global atmospheric model forecasts in different ways to forecast tropical cyclone motion and intensity. Combination models, however, can be constructed to capitalize on the strengths of each.

7. The key ingredient is lightning. Since lightning creates thunder, a storm with lightning is called a thunderstorm.

8. 7.3-8.9 on the Richter scale.

9. This is because floods, especially flash floods, kill more people each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, wind storms or lightning. More than half of all deaths occur in vehicles as they're swept away by moving water.

10.Heavy rain and melting snow brings excess water into nearby rivers, causing deadly floods.