In addition to fewer nasty pests, appropriate humidity, and great mountain flying, we don't have much tornado activity.

Looks like mountains are good for more than just scenery!

I see some pretty long lines there. I wonder what the longest tornado was on record?? I see one that went all the way across Florida (between the Gulf coast & the Atlantic)

Edit: Google search came up with this for the longest tornado.

Record Value: 352.4 km (219 mi.) / 3 ½ hours duration
Date of Event: 18/3/1925
Geospatial Location: Ellington, Missouri to Princeton Indiana

The so-called Tri-State Tornado traveled an exact heading N 69° E for 183 of its 219 mile track. It was on the ground for 3 ½ hours and killed an estimated 695 people. Its average forward (not rotational) speed was 27.7 m/s (62 mph) with a maximum speed of 32.6 m/s (73 mph).

Quotes above are from this website:
http://wmo.asu.edu/tornado-longest-lasting-greatest-distance-traveled-single-tornado

The map is missing a few.

20 years ago, a tornado tore up a tennis court a mile from us when we were in Hawaii. The map is also missing the water spouts in the San Francisco Bay area that add to the excitement of flight training in a busy aviation area.

They are not quite as rare as snow at sea level, which is once every 20 years, but they are indeed rare, about every 5, for which I am very thankful.

Looks to me like the map is substantially correlated with population centers. Either God is out to get us all, or they are missing a lot of tracks in the empty regions. As I recall, our Doppler coverage ends below about 5k AGL. So apart from being seen or inflicting damage, they can easily go uncharted. And there is not a lot to miss here. I suppose coverage must be even more sparse in the real boondocks. So apart from damage on the ground or weather spotters, a lot of them never get reported.

I've watched a lot of funnel clouds go by, but I've only seen a couple of them touch down. Watched three of them go over one time while I was working in a mobile home park. A lot of people were getting out of Dodge, but I figured as long as I was nailing shingles, I'd be able to see anything that mattered.

It also looks like the map corresponds with humidity and the plains. The mountains aren't immune from wind damage either. I can't imagine being camped out in the middle of a blow-down would be any less fun than a tornado. I was camped in the Bob Marshall one time when a Chinook came through. That was impressive enough. Especially since we had to hike out through the burn.