Tornado Warning - Tornado Alert

Tornado Alert

For many years until the early 1980s an intermediate type of tornado advisory known as a Tornado Alert was defined by the National Weather Service and issued by local offices thereof. A Tornado Alert indicated that tornado formation was imminent and in theory covered situations such as visible rotation in clouds and some other phenomena which are portents of funnel formation. The use of this advisory began to decline after 1974 but was still listed on public information materials issued by various media outlets, local NWS offices, &c. for another decade or so.

The kinds of situations which called for Tornado Alerts in the past now generally result in a Tornado Warning with clarifying verbiage specifying that the warning was issued because rotation was detected in one way or another, that a wall cloud has formed, and so on. The preferred response to both the Tornado Alerts and Warnings is to take shelter immediately, so distinguishing them could be seen as splitting hairs, especially since storm prediction methods have improved.

The Tornado Alert was finally eliminated because it was made largely obsolete by the advent of Doppler weather radar, which can detect rotational funnel cloud formations earlier than is typically possible by trained spotters and members of the public. With fewer false-positives, radar also helped reduce public confusion over storm types, strengths, and precise locations. The last Tornado Alert officially issued was discussed in earnest following the 3–4 April 1974 Super Outbreak.