The job of alerting the public about severe weather is performed by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma. The SPC is responsible for issuing Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Watches and provides severe weather forecasts up to eight days in advance of the storms.
How can they forecast severe weather so far in advance? SPC has a team of forecasters who specialize in the various types of hazardous weather such as tornadoes and thunderstorms. They use supercomputers and forecast models to understand the state of the atmosphere and what it might do next.The forecasters focus on weather pattern recognition by looking for certain patterns in the models. These patterns often occur in the atmosphere several days in advance of an outbreak of severe weather.
Typically, details of potential severe weather become more apparent one or two days out. When forecasters identify potential severe weather they then have a momentous decision to make: whether to issue a Tornado or Severe Thunderstorm Watch.
It’s a huge responsibility. Their decision will impact the lives of ordinary people, causing them to change their daily activities.
For example, placing New York City or Chicago in a watch puts millions of people on notice about severe weather potential. A watch will put Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) and other public safety agencies on heightened alert. It is not a decision that can be taken lightly.
But that is their job. A forecaster explains, “Knowing the destructive force of a tornado, living in central Oklahoma, and seeing destruction first-hand, you can become overcome by a dreadful feeling of knowing that this will not end well. You know the power of the storms. There is a very eerie feeling that comes over you, especially if storms occur overnight when people are sleeping. You can watch the storms on radar and see the towns the storms are crossing and realize the potential damage. Our role is to protect life and property. I keep that in front of my mind at all times.”
Dangerous weather can occur anytime and anywhere. While storm forecasts are not exact yet, they have vastly improved over the past couple of decades due to additional satellites taking weather measurements from space and more computing power. The men and women of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center use these tools to keep us safe.
