Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

conix, thought at least you might reason that when a ship went out of sight on the horizon some way back coulda felt it was headed down, or
that most wouldn't reason that many map makers back when would be more comfortable seeing their place down under .. here you go ..

How the north ended up on top of the map .. bit ..

As the United States was just beginning to emerge on the world stage in the 19th
century, American cartographers made some earnest efforts to give the U.S. pride of place.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html

Yep, colloquialism it's always been. Anyway, as DD said, at least you searched.