SALON

Sunday, Apr 15, 2012 1:15 AM UTC

Severe US Weather: Why this warning is different

By

Topics: From the Wires,

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Long before powerful storms began to roll through the Midwest Saturday afternoon, forecasters had warned of “life-threatening” tornadoes, thunderstorms and hail.

Here are some details on why these warnings — which came on Friday — were so unusual.

JUST HOW RARE? This marks the second time in U.S. history that the Storm Prediction Center has issued a high-risk warning more than 24 hours in advance.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME: The first high-risk warning more than a day early came in April 2006, when nearly 100 tornadoes tore across the southeastern U.S. In all, a dozen people died and more than 1,000 homes were damaged in Tennessee.

WHY EARLIER WARNINGS: In the past, people often have had only minutes of warning when a siren went off. But improvements in storm modeling and technology let forecasters predict storms earlier and with greater confidence, the National Weather Service says. The Storm Prediction Center is part of the service.

NEW WARNING LANGUAGE: The weather service is now testing words such as “mass devastation,” ”unsurvivable” and “catastrophic” aimed at getting more people to take heed. The warnings are being experimented with in Kansas and Missouri. The “life-threatening” warning for this round of storms, despite the dire language, was not part of that effort but just the most accurate way to describe what was expected, a weather service spokeswoman said.

ON THE GROUND: More than a dozen possible tornadoes were reported Saturday in the Midwest. An apparent twister took down barns, outbuildings and large trees in southeast Nebraska.

—

Storm Prediction Center: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
280 points281 points | 59 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
247 points248 points | 10 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
194 points195 points | 1 comment
vote
Today in How Did I Miss This: Iowa GOP is pushing to cut the pay of the remaining Supreme Court Justices that voted for legalization of gay marriage.
86 points87 points | 8 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
55 points56 points | 8 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations