I watch some of those tornado chasing videos on YouTube. And I notice, that often during the chase, the tornadoes are going through large areas of land, such as farming fields at back roads. Rarely do I see it in more densely populated areas, such as cities of skyscrapers. It's always rural areas. You see cities in the videos but mostly they're just showing the clouds in the distance as they're getting closer to the tornado or storm.

I'm thinking that the roughness of those areas (more buildings, tall structures, etc) makes it more difficult for the tornado to form. While open areas with only a few houses or barns creates less resistance.

That could be one explanation, the other could be the people just havent ssettled on places where the tornadoes or similar dangerous things are more often then elsewhere.
So on places with frequent tornadoes no city was built, so it remained rural...

I'm thinking that the roughness of those areas (more buildings, tall structures, etc) makes it more difficult for the tornado to form. While open areas with only a few houses or barns creates less resistance.

Tall buildings would make no difference to a storm. The supercell clouds can reach heights of 50 to 70 thousand feet... there a tall building may be one-thousand (and only cover a small area of land.)
Mountains on the other hand can reduce the chance of tornadoes* - but you're talking allot more height, and area covered by them.

*=and at the same time help storms get a start due to updrafts and such that they cause...storms that can after moving out of the mountains, go on to cause a tornado.

I have a feeling its more of a thing like GE101R said - there's a whole lot more 'open land' than there is 'city land', so by default you have a better chance of a tornado forming over somewhere open.


Also with storm-chasing videos...most storm chasers don't like chasing in city areas.

About 90% of the world’s tornadoes occur in North America. “Tornado Alley” is a large region in the Midwest spanning from central Texas to the Dakotas. In this region there is a lot of flat, sparsely populated land. There are no mountains to shred apart precipitation from cold fronts, and moisture that moves north from the Gulf of Mexico often combines with the cold fronts, leading to frequent tornado outbreaks in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, etc.

There is also “Dixie Alley” spanning Mississippi and Alabama where the land is flat and plenty of Gulf moisture supplies the cold fronts to produce dangerous weather.

My friend’s house in Alabama had a F1 tornado touch down a few miles away back in March. Thankfully he and his family were okay and there wasn’t any damage. I’m fortunate to live directly east of the Blue Ridge mountains in South Carolina, sheltered from most squal lines. I’ve never seen a tornado in real life, but I know they occur all throughout North America.

I've definitely seen large, violent tornadoes take place in more populated areas, on YouTube. Even cities. The one in Tuscaloosa Alabama
is a perfect example of this. Buildings have absolutely nothing to do with tornadoes forming, or the strength of the tornado.
It's really dependent on the strength of the thunderstorm. Supercells are the most powerful kind of thunderstorms... Supercells
are the ones responsible for tornadoes. Especially large, violent tornadoes.
Heck, really all you have to do is type in "Tornadoes in Cities," on YouTube. There's a chance the first several videos will show
just that lol

Most states in the Midwest have a few big cities and then the rest is just small towns and rural areas. I don't think it's that tornadoes can't form over cities, they just don't have a very high chance of forming in one area.