North America Weather

This wild, varied and extreme weather provides a dramatic backdrop for a new, seven-part Discovery Channel series, North America, which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. According to Discovery, the series "will reveal the intimate stories of animals struggling to survive in unforgiving weather and rugged terrain."
We get more high-impact weather than any other country on the planet," agrees Sean Potter, a meteorologist and weather historian in New York City.
"The U.S. is uniquely situated in the mid-latitudes — about halfway between the equator and the North Pole — and between two oceans," Potter notes. "The contrast of cold, dry, Arctic air from Canada and warm, moist, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific and Atlantic help fuel the massive storms that move across the country year-round, bringing everything from blizzards to heavy rain and thunderstorms, depending on the time of year," he says.
Tornadoes, such as the ones that slammed Texas on Wednesday, are nearly a uniquely American phenomenon. Each year, "the U.S. experiences about 80% to 90% of all of the tornadoes that occur across the world," says Randy Cerveny, a professor of geography at Arizona State University.
"The U.S. averages more than 10,000 severe thunderstorm events per year, with more than 1,000 tornadoes," Potter says. "By comparison, China, which is slightly larger in size, sees around the same number of severe thunderstorms, but fewer than 10 tornadoes per year."