Expert: Donald Rosenfeld - 4/30/2011

Question
I live in the area where with all the past/recent severe weather. I have never been so terrified of storms in my life until now. Normally I would sleep right through them and not know anything about a storm until someone mentioned it.But with all these tornadoes, I have been on alert all this month basically. So with Isolated thunderstorms, are those the conditions for tornadoes? What about scattered ones? how will I know. What does isolated and scattered actually mean.how will I know if the weather will be severe or not? I apologize for all the questions the weather in Alabama and Georgia has really gotten to me.I am a grown women and again I have never been so terrified of storms in my life. Do you think there will be more severe weather in the Southeast USA?

Answer
Hi

A tornado can come from any thunderstorm if the upper air pattern is such that there is a number of associated meteorological elements such as strong vorticity, shear, down-drafts, temperature and humidity differences and jet stream involvement:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#The Basics

http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/a_tornado/atornado.html

The best way to know when you are at risk is to watch the radar, listen to NOAA radio and pay attention to the alerts:

http://synoptic.envsci.rutgers.edu/site/radar.php?&conus=anim&radar=CONUS

http://www.hurricaneknowledge.com/noaaradio.html

http://kamala.cod.edu/svr/

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/

Isolated means very few and widely spaced; scattered means a few not together but distributed with space between each other in a given area.

There will be more severe weather in the southeastern USA but when and where is not certain.

Also, keep a watch on:

http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/RR/

and look at the "Reflectivity" images.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-87-6-747