page_title: Tornado myths
section_title: Downtown areas
hierarchical_section_title: Tornado myths / Geographical and temporal influences / Downtown areas
caption_attribution_description: Tornado in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Salt Lake City Tornado, August 11, 1999. (Orange fireball is a power sub-station exploding)
context_page_description: Tornado myths are incorrect beliefs about tornadoes, which can be attributed to many factors, including stories and news reports told by people unfamiliar with tornadoes, sensationalism by news media, and the presentation of incorrect information in popular entertainment. Common myths cover various aspects of the tornado, and include ideas about tornado safety, the minimization of tornado damage, and false assumptions about the size, shape, power, and path of the tornado itself.
  Some people incorrectly believe that opening windows ahead of a tornado will reduce the damage from the storm. Some people also believe that escaping in a vehicle is the safest method of avoiding a tornado, but this could increase the danger in some situations. Other myths are that tornadoes can skip houses, always travel in a predictable direction, always extend visibly from the ground to the cloud, and increase in intensity with increasing width.
context_section_description: Some people believe that, for various reasons, large cities cannot be struck by tornadoes. More than 100 tornadoes have been reported to strike downtown areas of large cities. Many cities have been struck twice or more, and a few—including Lubbock, Texas; Regina, Saskatchewan; St. Louis, Missouri; Topeka, Kansas; and London, England—have been struck by violent tornadoes (F4 or stronger).
  Tornadoes may seem rare in downtown areas because downtown areas cover such a small geographical area. Considering the size of a central business district is very small compared to the city limits, tornadoes will strike outside of the downtown area more often.
  The misconception, like most, has a small basis in truth. Research has been done in a few metropolitan areas suggesting that the urban heat island effect may discourage the formation of weak tornadoes in city centers, due to turbulent warm air disrupting their formation. This does not apply to significant tornadoes, however, and it is possible that the presence of tall buildings may actually intensify storms which move into downtown areas.
caption: Tornadoes are extremely rare in Utah, but downtown Salt Lake City was struck by this F2 tornado, which killed one person, in 1999.
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