Severe Weather Forecasting

I wanted to follow up on a comment that someone posted in the last entry I had on here talking about severe weather forecasting and wondering if it is actually getting better. By now, I'm sure you've seen some of the tornado damage on TV and some are asking if the death toll could've been reduced if the people in those areas knew ahead of time about the severe weather threat.

I know I'm biased when I say this, but severe weather forecasting is getting better and better with each passing season. Just recently (last year if I remember correctly), the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK started highlighting areas of concern for severe weather as many as 8 days in advance. We can't always tell you about a specific severe threat 8 days out, but we can tell you which areas may have severe weather and which day (or days) we are most likely to see the storms. I'm posting an example of the graphic that the Storm Prediction Center puts on their website. In this case, the SE corner of the US has a threat for severe weather on Day 4, which would be Tuesday, Feb. 12.

I have a feeling because we aren't technically in tornado season, most of us are not prepared for a significant outbreak like we had last week. But as we've seen now in 2 different cases, tornado outbreaks do happen in winter time and we should be ready. There is no severe weather (of the springtime variety) in our extended forecast. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.