Reading a warning like a meteorologist
A warning is a structured document, not a paragraph. Read the structure and you can see which parts came from radar, which came from a person, and which line your own report would land on.
The anatomy
Every warning carries the same skeleton. The placeholders below are where the variable content goes. The labels are fixed, and they are what you should be able to find at a glance.
VTEC /O.NEW.K[WFO].TO.W.[####].[start]Z-[end]Z/ LAT...LON the warning polygon, as a list of vertices HAZARD... what is expected, e.g. tornado; quarter size hail SOURCE... where the information came from IMPACT... what it will do to people and property TIME...MOT... storm position, direction and speed TORNADO... tag: RADAR INDICATED or OBSERVED TORNADO DAMAGE THREAT... tag: CONSIDERABLE or CATASTROPHIC
The Valid Time Event CodeThe coded line that gives a warning its machine-readable identity: which office, which hazard, which event number, and the time window. It is how systems tell an update from a new warning. line is the machine-readable identity of the warning: action, office, phenomenon, significance, event number and the time window. It is how every downstream system, including ours, knows an update is the same event rather than a new one.
The tags, and what upgrades them
The tag ladder is why the distinction between a tornado warning, a Particularly Dangerous SituationWording reserved for the rare watch, and occasionally the warning, where long-lived strong or violent tornadoes, or an extreme wind event, are expected. It is not a change of tone; treat it as an instruction to be in position early. tornado warning and a tornado emergency is not a matter of tone. It is a field with a defined value.
Where your report lands in the text
It lands on the SOURCE line, in words close to SOURCE...Weather spotters confirmed tornado. That line is where the spotter appears in the product, and every person and system that reads the warning sees it.
A warning decision draws on three inputs: radar, the environment, and reports. Reports carry the most weight where the other two are weakest, which Lesson 1 showed you how to predict. When the beam over your town is 8,600 ft up, your observation is not corroborating evidence. It is the only evidence about the ground.
The warning gets updated
A warning is not issued once and left. Severe Weather Statements update it while it runs: narrowing the The shape a warning is drawn on, replacing whole-county warnings in 2007. Being inside the shape is what matters, not which county you are in. as the storm moves, clearing part of it, upgrading a tag. That is why a report made in the middle of a warning still matters. The product it changes has not been issued yet.
A severe thunderstorm warning is issued and it sets off phones as a Wireless Emergency Alert. Which tag value explains that?
One tier of the thunderstorm damage-threat tag is defined by a wind speed and a hail size.The destructive tier, 80 mph wind or 2.75 in hail, is the one that triggers WEA on a severe thunderstorm warning. Most severe thunderstorm warnings do not, which is where the complaint that "the alert never came through" comes from.