{"id":268,"date":"2010-09-25T17:44:53","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T17:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/?p=268"},"modified":"2019-04-25T11:28:11","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T11:28:11","slug":"criteria-for-a-tornado-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/weather-glossary\/criteria-for-a-tornado-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"Criteria For a Tornado Warning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The National Weather Service (NWS) is the official U.S. government agency charged with issuing severe weather watches, warnings, and advisories and is the source used by iAlert.com. When the NWS issues a &#8220;Tornado Warning&#8221; their decision is based on based on the following criteria&#8230;.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Tornado Warning is Issued When: <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>A tornado is reported on the ground or is indicated by weather radar<\/li>\n<li>A waterspout is headed for landfall<\/li>\n<li>A rotating wall cloud, usually one that has strong low-level rotation, is reported.<\/li>\n<li>A funnel cloud is reported.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_3898\" style=\"width: 488px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3898\" class=\"wp-image-3898 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/iAlert.com_Tornado_Warning_Sample_Radar_Box_feature_478x359.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"478\" height=\"359\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3898\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sample Radar Image Highlighting Tornado Location<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the criteria for which a tornado warning is issued under, a tornado warning means there is <em>immediate danger<\/em> for the warned area and those in the storm path should take cover immediately. Although it is well known that tornados are most common in the mid-west United States, called tornado ally, tornados can and do occur in all 50 states. U.S. tornado warnings are generated through the NWS Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) and disseminated through various communication channels including<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/iAlert.com\">iAlert.com<\/a>, the news media, <a id=\"amznPsBmLink_9560225\" class=\"amzn_ps_bm_tl\" href=\"http:\/\/amazon.com\/s\/ref=as_li_bk_tl\/?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=NOAA%20Weather%20Radio&amp;tag=ialert-email-20&amp;linkId=d5f8bcfa3a7b94e2bc572cba037be0e0&amp;linkCode=ktl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword=\"NOAA Weather Radio\" data-amzn-link-id=\"d5f8bcfa3a7b94e2bc572cba037be0e0\">NOAA Weather Radio<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"amznPsBmPixel_9560225\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; height: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?source=bk&amp;t=ialert-email-20&amp;bm-id=default&amp;l=ktl&amp;linkId=d5f8bcfa3a7b94e2bc572cba037be0e0&amp;_cb=1556187152883\" alt=\"\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" border=\"0\" \/>, and where present Civil defense sirens are activated. A warning should not be confused with a tornado watch which indicates that conditions are <em>favorable<\/em> for the formation of tornadoes.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Related Articles:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/understanding-national-weather-service-severe-weather-outlooks\/\">Understanding National Weather Service &#8220;Severe Weather Outlook&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"How tornadoes form\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/basic-meteorology\/how-tornadoes-form\">How tornadoes form<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Facts about tornadoes\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/basic-meteorology\/tornado-facts\">Tornado facts<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"tornado safety\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/tornado-safety\/\">Tornado Safety<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Lightning Safety\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/lightning-safety\/\">Lightning Safety<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Flood Safety\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/flood-safety\/\">Flood Safety<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"tornado myths\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/tornado-myths\">Tornado Myths<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Lightning Myths\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/lightning-myths\/\">Lightning Myths<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"The life cycle of a thunderstorm\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/basic-meteorology\/the-life-cycle-of-thunderstorms\">Life cycle of thunderstorms<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Criteria for a tornado warning\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-glossary\/criteria-for-a-tornado-warning\">Criteria for a tornado warning<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Criteria for a severe thunderstorm warning\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-glossary\/criteria-for-a-severe-thunderstorm-warning\">Criteria for a severe thunderstorm<\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a title=\"Difference between a flood and flash flood\" href=\"http:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/basic-meteorology\/what-is-the-difference-between-a-flash-flood-and-a-flood\/\">Difference between flood and flash flood<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ialert.com\/services\/\">Sign-up to receive real-time tornado email and text message alerts<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Weather Service (NWS) is the official U.S. government agency charged with issuing severe weather watches, warnings, and advisories and is the source used by iAlert.com. When the NWS issues a &#8220;Tornado Warning&#8221; their decision is based on based on the following &hellip;<span class=\"more\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/weather-articles\/weather-glossary\/criteria-for-a-tornado-warning\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[120,100,82,398],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weather-glossary","tag-tornado","tag-tornado-warning","tag-tornado-watch","tag-weather-glossary-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3907,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/3907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ialert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}