Depends upon how much towards the center, continentally speaking; blizzards and tornados are devastating in a vast, nigh flat, expanse where, after the corn was cut down, you could see your neighbor twenty miles away. Our wooded, hilly northeast usually kills the blast before it gets very far, the coast being the more vulnerable; rain dribbles down through the trees rather than smash into everything on the ground. Unfortunately, large portions of forest are being cut down, leaving them open to the weather, save for the effect of the hills.
Upper New York state is like another country compared to concrete-clad New York City or, even, a smaller metropolitan city like Boston, Mass. When I was in the midwest, many there thought all of New York State was like New York City.