We often overlook the hardworking team of meteorologists who diligently monitor severe weather threats around the clock. It was on March 17, 1952, 73 years ago today, that marked a significant day in the history of severe weather forecasting. The U.S. Weather Bureau’s Army-Navy (WBAN) analysis staff issued their first public tornado “bulletin”, which today would be considered a watch, for the potential of tornadoes in parts of the South that night and the following morning. Although the actual tornadoes that night occurred just outside the highlighted area in the bulletin, a subsequent bulletin issued four days later covered an area from Missouri to Louisiana to the Tennessee Valley, where three dozen tornadoes hit, resulting in 208 fatalities. These early forecasts of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes demonstrated their effectiveness, notably after back-to-back tornadoes struck Oklahoma’s Tinker Air Force Base in late March 1948. It’s interesting to note that the word “tornado” was banned in government forecasts from the late 1880s until 1938 to prevent causing panic among the public. In 1953, the Severe Local Storm Warning Center (SELS), later known as the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), began issuing regular severe weather discussions, termed “convective outlooks” by meteorologists. SPC, currently located in Norman, Oklahoma, coordinates with local National Weather Service offices and issued 726 severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in the U.S. in 2024. They also provide severe weather forecasts up to a week in advance, serving as the initial alert for potential hazardous thunderstorms in your region. Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist with weather.com, has specialized in covering extreme and unusual weather events since 1996. He can be contacted through Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook.
