Quick Question - What do those red boxes mean on weather maps?

[Mind_your_head]

This map has a bunch of 'em. I emailed weather.com once and never got a reply. So can someone unravel the mystery of the weather map, "What does it all mean?"



TIA :hi:

[MercutioATC]

1. Severe weather

[movonne]

2. ?

[pinto]

3. Looks like tornado warning zones.

[grannie4peace]

4. and tornadoes

[noamnety]

5. If you click the red boxes

you can put those parts of the country on ignore.

[mcctatas]

8. ....

:rofl:

[DainBramaged]

10. Duzy nominee

:yourock:

[libnnc]

11. ...

:spray:

You win.

[Mind_your_head]

12. LOL

Good one! :thumbsup:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

19. .... Hah!! n/t

[RB TexLa]

6. They are weather warning areas issued by the national weather service.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Tornado Watches

[Mind_your_head]

13. Okay, but why do they use those separate boxes - especially

when they overlap like they do? Seems to me like they could put one big red rectangle along that whole front?

[Liberal In Texas]

15. I believe it's because each box as a separate start and expire time.

[RoyGBiv]

20. Yes ...

Watches are issued in reference to specific storms cells or areas of cells that are closely interacting. They do it by county, generally.

Some areas are in the path of being affected by more than one cell or system of cells and so will fall under more than one watch area.

[RoyGBiv]

16. They are different alerts ...

They will expire at different times.

You could issue an alert for the whole Midwest right now, but it wouldn't mean much. The NWS tries to be more precise than that, especially with tornado watches.

The warnings, when they come, will encompass even smaller areas and also overlap. As with the watches, the warnings refer to specific storm systems.

[MadHound]

9. Thar be tornadoes

Just had the front end of that mess pass through my area, complete with a couple of tornadoes thrown in(one hit a mile away from me)

Now looking at getting coated by snow and ice, yippee!

If you're in that path, find shelter, stay safe, get in a basement.

[Mind_your_head]

14. Glad to hear you weren't hit with that tornado

Geez, one hitting only a mile away is pretty darn close (good thing 'close' only counts in horseshoes).

As for being in the basement, I've been in my basement all morning cleaning up some serious seepage from all the rapidly melting snow. *sigh*

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. That's where the weather has decided that there are

weapons of mass destruction... learned this trick from shrubco.

[Liberal In Texas]

18. I prefer the NWS radars over these private guys. The NWS has an explaination at the bottom what

each box represents.

See for example: http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=lsx&product=NCR&overlay=11101111&loop=no

You can enter the zip code that applies to you, and you can see a loop if you have a current java installed.

[Mind_your_head]

21. Thanks for explaining that - appreciate it everyone

Also, thanks for the good laugh, fern.

(And thanks for the link to a different weather site than I normally use. I gonna give it a look!)

[Are_grits_groceries]

22. A warning means a tornado has been spotted.

It's time to hunker down!