4 ms·

Part of the problem is tornado watches are very commonplace in the midwest. Business never close because of them. Little league games would be canceled, you'd k

Part of the problem is tornado watches are very commonplace in the midwest. Business never close because of them. Little league games would be canceled, you'd keep an eye on the weather, would stay inside, etc., but its not like a hurricane. If this was an atypical storm that meteorologists saw coming well in advance, then the emergency alert system should have been activated with a warning that made it clear that this was not like a normal storm--shelter in place or something like that. But in the ~30 years I spent in the midwest we never had anything like that happen--preemptive shutdown for tornadoes.

counters 5y ago
Just throwing it out there, but in the past 10 years there has been a trend in some parts of the country (Oklahoma, Dixie Alley, etc) to shut down events and hold students from school when significant severe weather outbreaks are expected, usually a "MODERATE" or a "HIGH" probability convective outlook from the SPC. But this is always in deference to timing - e.g. closing school because the event is expected to be ramping up around the time when children may be on buses at the end of the day. It's a reasonable precaution that a municipality can choose to make. But I can't think of an instance of such cancellations and closures occurring for overnight storms.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  > But I can't think of an instance of such cancellations and closures occurring for overnight storms. Yes, this article points out some of the very reasons why overnight tornadic activity is much more common (and deadly) on the "edges" of (the expanding) tornado alley (the Southeast US and the states such as Indiana and Ohio often referred to as "midwest" for historic reasons rather than accurate geographic ones) than more centrally in it (Texas, Oklohoma, most of the rest of the Great Plains) where daytime storms are more common.

counters 5y ago

Just throwing it out there, but in the past 10 years there has been a trend in some parts of the country (Oklahoma, Dixie Alley, etc) to shut down events and hold students from school when significant severe weather outbreaks are expected, usually a "MODERATE" or a "HIGH" probability convective outlook from the SPC. But this is always in deference to timing - e.g. closing school because the event is expected to be ramping up around the time when children may be on buses at the end of the day. It's a reasonable precaution that a municipality can choose to make. But I can't think of an instance of such cancellations and closures occurring for overnight storms.

WorldMaker 5y ago
> But I can't think of an instance of such cancellations and closures occurring for overnight storms. Yes, this article points out some of the very reasons why overnight tornadic activity is much more common (and deadly) on the "edges" of (the expanding) tornado alley (the Southeast US and the states such as Indiana and Ohio often referred to as "midwest" for historic reasons rather than accurate geographic ones) than more centrally in it (Texas, Oklohoma, most of the rest of the Great Plains) where daytime storms are more common.