Do you know the difference between a severe weather "watch" and a "warning"?
Here's how National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists make the distinction:
- A severe thunderstorm or tornado watch is issued when it's possible that such a severe storm or tornado could develop in the area. It does not mean they will occur, only that it's possible.
- A severe thunderstorm or tornado warning means a storm or tornado is either occurring in your area or is imminent. If you hear a warning alert for your area, you should seek shelter immediately.
Watches nearly always come before warnings and they generally cover a much larger area for a longer period of time.
Watches are generated from the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Warnings are determined and generated by meteorologists working at the agency's 122 regional forecast centers around the country.
Despite the fact that the National Weather Service has been using these terms to clarify severe storm threat levels for decades, many Americans still have a hard time understanding which is which. A University of Oklahoma studyasked 769 residents of Texas, Oklahoma and California if they knew the difference. Only 58% knew the difference and 36% were incorrect. Keep in mind that many of the respondents int the study live in a region of the country known as "tornado alley" because of the frequency and destructive nature of tornadoes there.
Understanding those terms and responding accordingly can mean the difference between life and death.
"This is a huge problem," says Warning Coordination Meteorologist Anthony Cavallucci of the weather service's facility in Morristown, Tenn. "Do we need to change the wording of 'watch' and 'warning'? We are working with social scientists to figure out how we can word our warnings and get people to take action."
A four-part study now underway seeks to establish what residents in the South know about tornadoes and severe weather, how seriously they take weather warnings, and how forecasters could forge better connections with the public they serve. While the atmospheric factors of severe weather have been studied for decades, the current project is the first to take sociological and psychological factors into consideration.
The insertion of social science into a world largely dominated by the physical sciences represents a bit of a departure for the NWS. But Cavallucci knows the stakes are extremely high.
"I don't know how we're going to do it," Cavallucci says, "but I'm all for it if it'll make things better."