# 4582
Potential for severe weather today (May 19th, 2010) as forecast by the Storms Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Later today most of Oklahoma, and parts of northern Texas will be under high threat of severe weather . . . which could include flash floods, strong winds, severe hail, and tornadoes. A larger area of the Mid-West will be under a medium threat.
According to the latest bulletin, the biggest window of danger will run from about 2pm Central time until midnight, although severe weather could occur into tomorrow morning.
Which means that everyone in these areas should already have an emergency plan in place, have a battery-operated weather radio, and be prepared to seek shelter immediately should conditions threaten.
Many people have family and friends in this region, and are no doubt interested in ways to follow the latest developments via the internet. Others may simply have an interest, or fascination, with severe weather.
In either event, I thought I’d share some of the resources I use when tracking severe storms across `tornado alley’.
The first stop should always be NOAA’s Storms Prediction Center, where multi-day outlooks of severe weather are constantly being updated.
A clickable U.S. map that will link you to the regional NOAA weather forecast offices can be found here, or by clicking the graphic below.
Although not a substitute for having your own emergency weather radio, you can listen to NOAA weather radio alerts online, coming from most areas of the country.
When a tornado warning has been issued, I will sometimes check to see if local TV stations in the threat area are broadcasting live on the Internet. Cities with a long history of severe storms often break into regular programming for with non-stop coverage.
A Google Search will often provide you with several local TV stations that may be streaming video. KFOR.COM in Oklahoma City usually goes live once tornado warnings are issued. Other stations you might try in the OKC area are KOCO.COM and KWTV.COM.
If streaming video is a bit too much for your internet connection, you might prefer to listen in to one of the hundreds of police/fire/EMS scanner feeds that are available online.
RadioReference is just one of several online portals for scanner feeds, but is the one I tend to use. Simply click on the maps to select the state, then county, that you wish to monitor.
But if your internet connection can handle it, you might find the live streaming video (and sometimes audio) from storm chasers in the field to be of interest. Once again there are several options here.
One of the biggest is Severe Studios, which often has more than a half dozen chasers streaming video simultaneously.
You may also wish to check out Storm Chaser TV, and often you’ll find Hurricane City’s live feed available on their site, or on USTREAM.
Of course, if you are in the path of the storm, you need to get off the Internet and down into your cellar or safe room. Hopefully today’s threat will turn out to be less serious than the forecast indicates.
When Hurricane season arrives, I’ll have some hurricane-centric links for you as well.
