I mean, frankly, how often are you under a legitimate TOR warning that you’re having to do this? I live in the Midwest—in tornado country, no less—and the number of TOR warnings that disrupt my life in a given year I can count on one hand (assuming there are any).

Also this just misunderstands the threat of tornadoes. A warning is issued for a county-wide area, even though a tornado threatens (at most) a couple-mile wide swath of land. That seems ridiculous, except for the fact that even small deviations in the storm’s path can disrupt lives significantly. The NWS isn’t wrong.

Tornado and other storm warnings haven't been issued by county for several years now-- warnings are issued for a polygon where the storm may impact (plus some margin of error). If you're in a tornado warning polygon now, you'll want to take shelter. If you're not in the polygon, you don't need to (depending on how you get your storm alerts, you might still be alerted by county, though-- that's my big complaint about the current state of weather radio).

https://www.weather.gov/media/pah/WeatherEducation/stormbase...

>>>Tornado and other storm warnings haven't been issued by county for several years now... depending on how you get your storm alerts, you might still be alerted by county, though-- that's my big complaint about the current state of weather radio

To a normal person this is perceived as as a warning being issued for them, even if you are technically correct that the NWS only target a narrow polygon, if a person phone lights up with an EAS saying "Tornado warning", or their TV, or weather radio, that is perceived as them personally being issued a tornado warning.

  > after so many times of dropping what you are doing and rushing to the basement, only to have nothing happen, it becomes an annoyance and is not taken seriously.

Is that feeling widespread? In my area we have sirens for different a type of threat, but everybody that I know drops what they are doing and rushes to the shelter, even if it happens two dozen times day and night.

To what would you attribute the lack of compliance? Attrition? How often is "so many times"? I'm seriously interested because it seems to different - and indifferent.

I have never once dropped what I was doing an rushed to a shelter unless forced to do so by overriding company policy while at my employers place of business.

If I am operating under my own accord if a warning is issued I normally find the nearest weather resource with active tracking of the cell to see if I should even care as warning are no where near targeted enough

If I am in path of the storm I then look to see if this is a confirmed or radar based warning, I then look to other sources (including visual outside) to my my own determination on if it is proper to shelter. 80% of the time I make the choice of Nope do not need to bother

I see, so at least you do check if the warning is pertinent to you. Our warnings cover relatively small geographical areas, so if we hear it then it sure is pertinent to us. But I understand that maybe your warnings cover larger areas.

Thanks for the detail. Here's to a siren-free week!