Regional Outbreaks of Severe Weather Through Early Next Week; Early Season Heat Wave across the South

Active spring pattern across the center of our nation with several episodes of severe weather and heavy rainfall expected into next week. The potential for very large hail, long track tornadoes, severe wind gusts, frequent cloud to ground lightning strikes and flash flooding are in the outlook. Furthermore, dangerous early season heat wave continues for the Gulf Coast states into early next week. Read More >

Tornado Hazards

RISK LEVEL	HAZARD DESCRIPTION
Low	Chance of a tornado is in the 2-5% range. Tornados generally expected to be of weak strength (F0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale).
Moderate	Chance of a tornado is in the 5-15% range. Tornados generally expected to be of moderate strength (F1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale).
High	Chance of a tornado is greater than 15 %. Tornados generall expected to be strong (F2 or higher on the Enhanced Fujita Scale).

The existing NWS WFO Newport/Morehead City Graphical Hazards have been discontinued due to technical issues. A new version of these hazards graphics is under development and will be implemented once it has passed an internal testing period. This will hopefully come in 2016, but we cannot estimate when at this time. We regret the inconvenience and hope you found the previous version of this webpage and graphics useful. We hope you will find the new version of this webpage just as useful when it comes online

General Information

According to the Glossary of Meteorology (AMS 2000), a tornado is "a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud." Literally, in order for a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must be in contact with the ground and the cloud base.

Tornados kill about 60 people per year in the United States, mostly from flying or falling (crushing) debris.