You don't want to be issuing [a tornado warning] on every one of those little circulations...because you are going to be alerting upwards of a million people in the middle of the night.            -- Julie Adolphson, meteorologist-in-charge, National Weather Service, Kansas City   In 2010, when my book Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather was published, the United States had an excellent tornado warning system. Near the end of the book I wrote: From that inauspicious beginning involving spare World War II leftovers, we have developed an effective and highly cost-effective systems that saves lives and dollars, nearly every week. Here's to the first fifty years of storm warnings. May the next fifty be just as rewarding.  Unfortunately, things have deteriorated in ways I never would have imagined in 2010. Joplin Tornado. Photo by the Basehunters. The next year the Joplin Tornado occurred. It was, by far, the worst disa...

The aftermath of the Wichita-Andover Tornado of 2022 is astounding: One thousand buildings damaged or destroyed and no deaths and no serious injuries. It has a preliminary rating of a high-end EF-3.  Below is the Andover YMCA where the staff heard the warnings and took everyone to the basement. Imagine if the tornado had struck without warning! KAKE-TV News Part of this is good luck. But, the majority is due to weather science training people what to do and then the forecasts and warnings by dedicated and skilled meteorologists.  Congratulations to all meteorologists involved in warning the people of south central Kansas.  Addition: After posting this, it was brought to my attention that three storm chasers from the University of Oklahoma were killed on the way back to Norman last night.  As it turns out, they were chasing the tornado Kathleen and I saw touch down and reported . Meteorologists and storm chasers go into field to report on these storms to keep everyon...

This is among the most amazing tornado videos I have ever seen.  Based on the damage I have seen, it will likely be rated at least EF-3 intensity. As far as we know, there were no deaths and no serious injuries -- in spite of destroying or damaging more than 100 homes and other buildings. At the badly hit Andover YMCA, the staff got everyone to shelter after hearing the warning.  This was another case of weather science saving lives through timely, accurate forecasts and warnings.