difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning?
461804
a watch means that the weather is favorable for them and warning means one has been sited and is on the ground TAKE SHELTER!
1042701
A 'watch' is simply letting you know that conditions are favorable for a severe thunderstorm or tornado.\nA 'warning' means one has been spotted and you need to get inside or into a storm cellar if you have one.
625019
What may have happened was the funnel cloud you saw was either a downburst or a cold air funnel.\n\nHowever, in the case they aren't cold air funnels or downbursts and the NWS doesn't catch it in time and doesn't issue a tornado warning, it might be that their equippment didn't catch it in time or that no spotters saw it.  \n\nWeather spotters and weather radar isn't perfect.  So err on the side of caution when you see severe weather.  Even if it's a severe thunderstorm warning, head indoors and don't be chicken to head to the basement.
647623
Generally, a watch means that conditions are right for a storm to occur, but the storm isn't actually occurring. A warning means that a storm is occurring or is imminent, as observed by storm spotters or Doppler radar. Watches typically cover a wide area, while warnings are usually confined to a single county or parish.
607361
Actually NOAA has quite a handful of planes with high-quality radar, and they do use them in such projects.  I direct you to http://www.stormresearch.com/vortex/ for one such project, and http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2002/ihop.html for a more recent project on rain.\nI am currently related to a project looking at some high resolution Dopplar data from a hurricane a few years back while it was over the ocean.\n\nRegular WSR-88D Dopplar (the network the NWS uses) is decently effective at general alerting to possible tornadic storms... and it would be extremely expensive to send planes out all the time just for warning purposes (though there is a new test-project to setup a larger network of low cost radars to improve warnings a lot (http://www.casa.umass.edu/)).\n\nBut there are some things regular 88Ds can't give us, including:\n- better time and spatial resolution of features (we want to be near a tornado to get a more precise view of what it looks like, and WSR88Ds only update something like every 5 minutes because they scan the entire 360 degree sky)\n- the vertical wind fields.  You need at least two properly located radars to get the full 3-dimensional structure of winds... and this is crucial to understanding what's actually happening in a storm.\n\nSo, yes, portable Dopplars are very useful.  They also help us look at weather in places where we don't/can't have any fixed radars (like at sea or in mountain ranges).\nGenerally, portable radars on trucks will get us the same information, are much cheaper (and safer) to transport, you don't have to worry about removing the motion of the radar (planes are moving, trucks can be stopped), and you don't have as much trouble with beams hitting the ground... and thus most of our tornado information comes from truck-mounted radars like the famous Dopplar on Wheels (http://aaron.ou.edu/dow/dow.htm).  However, there are some reasons to use planes even in such experiments, including better upper-level resolution, the ability to reposition quicker, and the fact that trucks can only hold and power radars that are a cerain size.\n\nPlanes are indeed useful, and hopefully we'll continue to get better ones for research... as they really can provide quite a great suite of information (dropsondes (weather sensors that are dropped from airplanes) are also great because they give a rather quick profile of the atmosphere)!\n\nAwesome question!\n\nHope I helped answer things,\nGod bless,\nShane
975582
You can't tell by just stepping outside, unless you see a funnel cloud or something.  Tornadoes are usually created from cold fronts or occluded fronts.  You have very warm air ahead of the front, and very cool air behind it.  The difference in the air temperature pushes air up, creating an updraft.  Bottom line, tornadoes are caused by warm and cool air in the same area.  And you have to have very strong winds in the upper atmosphere.  70 to 80 mph.  That helps with the updraft.
182826
Both weather and quake prediction rely on taking current and past data and projecting it into the future to determine the likelihood of a particular outcome.\n\nA meteorologist will look at satellite data, temperature, atmospheric pressure and wind readings and compare them to past weather patterns to determine if the upcoming weather will be warmer, colder, wetter, etc.  The weather reports are not set in stone facts unless you are dealing with the weather of the moment or the past.  The temperatures, storm and wind predictions are merely predictions of how the weather seems to be shaping up to be.\n\nSeismologists use similar methods to provide probabilities of quake activity.  They use current ground movements, known fault structures and evidence of past seismic activity to project if a quake might occur in an area within a period of time.\n\nThe biggest difference is a matter of time scale.  Weather happens on a much shorter time scale than seismic activity.  Geologic time is measured in periods thousands of years thus making short-term predictions very difficult.  The USGS has earthquake probability numbers on their website for California for a period of 30 years (e.g. Bay Area will have a 62.5% chance of a 6.5 or greater quake sometime in the next 30 years).\n\nCompared to the geologic time scale, this is like predicting the weather in the next hour.
392790
A tornado watch means that weather conditions are favorable for producing a tornado.  Doesn't mean that there will be one.\nA tornado warning means that a tornado has either been spotted or Doppler radar indicates the presence of a tornado.\nIn any case, you want to go down into your basement if you are inside or a central room like a bathroom and make sure to bring a flashlight and maybe even a small battery operated radio to check the weather status.\nIf you are outside or in a car, get out of the car and lay as low as possible, preferably in a ditch.  Watch for accumulating water and flash floods to avoid drowning. Do NOT go underneath a bridge, flying debris can easily strike and kill you there.\nIf inside a public building, look for the storm shelter and if no storm shelter, go to the NE corner of the building since tornadoes typically travel from SW to NE.
144997
A weather element is/can be a weather factor. For instance, the weather element of warm moist air blending with the weather element of cold dry air can be weather factors in producing a tornado.\n\nElement = A Single item\nFactor = A Single item considerred a contributor to an event.
44270
The funnel of a tornado is actually clear.  The only way we actually see the tornado is because of the debris that is circulating inside the funnel.  The wind speed of the tornado will not increase because of debris.  Debris can only be a hinderance to a tornado.  To help you think about this, think about a very large piece of debris, lets say a mountain.  Now while the mountain is not going to be picked up and tossed around like dirt, cows, trucks and some houses, it is still something that is getting in the way of a tornado.  The mid-west experiences far more tornadoes than any other region.  This is because they are uninhibited from forming.  Basically the more you put in the way of the funnel the more difficult it will be for that funnel (aka the tornado) to form.  To put it on a level that everyone can relate to, think of your toilet.  When you flush the toilet the water starts to swirl.  A funnel begins to appear in the water and eventually everything goes away.  What happens if there is too much TP(debris) in the way?  The funnel never forms and you get a clog.  I hope this helps.
835940
Tornado, lasts minutes.  Thunderstorms hours, Blizzard hours to a day or so.  Hurricane, day to several days.
607206
No time passes between the two.  The occur at the same time.\n\nIf you are standing a mile away, however, you will see the flash before you hear the sound.  This is, of course, because light is faster than sound.  \n\nYou can use this to estimate how far away a storm is.  The light will reach you almost instantaneously, while the sound will take aproximately five seconds per mile to reach you.  Therefore 15 seconds = 3 miles, etc. \n\nOf course, storms can be large, and the lightnening can happen anywhere within the storm, so it isn't all that accurate for gaging the storm's distance.
466367
Most of these answers are describing tornado watches/warnings. Hurricanes differ greatly.  If your area is under a hurricane watch it means the hurricane is within 36 hours from the coast and it is possibly going to land in that certain area.  At this point the area is several hundred miles long and on the weather map it is shaded YELLOW.  When a hurricane warning is put out it is narrowed down to a certain area and is within 24 hrs from hitting land.  The area on the weather map is now shaded RED. \nIt has nothing to do with "spotting" the storm.  The storm has been tracked for several days or weeks before watches or warnings are announced.  I hope this helps you and I didn't confuse you too bad.\n\nADDED:\nBetween June 1st and November 30th all the coastal areas are favorable for a hurricane so according to some of these answers we (coastal areas) are in a constant hurricane watch for 5 months!!! LOL
515568
Yep it all depends on if the  warm air current is rising up to meet a cold one that is coming down and they clash enough to make a vortex. Tornado's can happen pretty much anywhere.
830822
you are in the midst of a big tornado.the time for you is to wake up & save yourself from this tornado, by inquiring about the truth.
1005973
When I was a student pilot, my flight instructor and I were flying from McAllen, TX back to Harlingen,TX. We spotted a small tornado below and to the right of us about five miles. We watched it for several minutes and reported it to the Flight Service Station in the area. It even made the news that night. That was in 1967.
1162559
12 Zulu time NAM (a weather model that guesses future weather) is predicting the uplift of air (convection) a little better than the GFS (another weather model that guesses future weather)...and based upon the NAM model, will lower the possibility of precipitation (pops) to 40 percent chance across the northern half of the county (CWA) for early this evening...as we are in between two areas of lower pressure (trough). I'll take a cold beer as payment. Thanks.