“Origins of the Tornado Watch”

by Caleb, KE0FOE

While most of us know March 17th to be Saint Patrick’s Day, it’s also a very important weather-related anniversary – essentially being the birthday of what we nowadays know to be a “Tornado Watch”.

65 years ago, on March 17, 1952, the very first public “Tornado Bulletin” was issued by the Weather Bureau Army Navy also known more simply back then as the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The importance of these bulletins was immediately realized, and thus a “Severe Weather Unit” became a permanent operation two months later in May of 1952. This “Severe Weather Unit” would later evolve into what we know today to be the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

You can read a paper titled “The Birth and Early Years of the Storm Prediction Center” written Stephen F. Corfidi by clicking here.  More information about Tornado Watches can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_watch . You can visit the website of the Storm Prediction Center in Normal, Oklahoma by clicking here.