Jeff Bowman, age 12, of Byron, Illinois, for his question:

What do they mean by the tornado belt?

Earthquakes and tornados can strike almost anywhere in the world. But both these dramatic events have their favorite happening places. Most of our earthquakes happen along a belt down the western mountains. Most of our tornados strike in a belt running roughly through the Mississippi Valley. The most active section of this tornado belt covers our central states. Its milder fringes extend through the eastern states and westward toward the Rockies. The far western states expect less than five tornado strikes per year.

Tornados are the brattish children of very complex weather conditions. They tend to form in broods when two or three immense air masses battle each other in atmos¬pheric warfare. Because of geography and the prevailing winds, these conditions tend to form more often in regions east of the Rockies on the Great Plains along the Missis¬sippi. The states in the tornado belt most likely to be struck are Kansas and Iowa, Texas and Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.