Aurora, Colo., is the nation's most tornado-prone city, according to a report by Boston-based CDS Business Mapping.
The top ten list is based on the RiskMeter Online's Tornado Model, which was designed to predict the severity of tornadoes for any location within the Continental United States.
Second to Aurora was St. Petersburg, Fla., with Houston ranking third. Hollywood, Fla., at fourth place, was the only other city from an eastern state to make the list.
Rounding out the top ten are Sioux Falls, S.D., in fifth, followed by Little Rock, Ark.; Dallas; Ames, Iowa; Oklahoma City; and Bloomington, Ill.
According to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has roughly 1,200 tornadoes in the average year, resulting in approximately $4,400 million in damage.
Perhaps most striking, according to Daniel Munson, vice president of sales and marketing for CDs, is the disparity in severity among cities, even those within the top ten.
"A couple of places are so much higher" in terms of risk, he said, adding that according to the company's measuring system, number ten–Bloomington–is significantly less likely to be hit by a tornado than Aurora.
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