Scariest Kind of Storm

Weather stops being scenery at a fairly specific point, and every entry in this bracket is past it. What makes them frightening varies more than the category suggests. A tornado is terrifying because of randomness — the path is decided minute by minute and a house either exists afterwards or does not. A hurricane is the opposite: days of warning, a named thing approaching on a map, and nowhere far enough to drive. Ice storms are the quietest entry and among the most destructive, because the weight accumulates silently until the power lines and the trees come down together. A derecho is a straight line of wind that behaves like a tornado several hundred miles wide.

Altogether, thirty-two storms, and the question is the one you would least want to see coming towards you.

Warning time turns out to be the axis most people vote on without noticing. The storms that arrive with no notice consistently beat the ones that are objectively more destructive but announce themselves days in advance.