NOAA Provides Critical Lead Time for Southeast Tornadoes

Tornadoes that tore across the Southeast on March 1st struck after significant advance warning from the NOAA National Weather Service. Preliminary Tornado Warning lead times -- the amount of time between the issuance of a Tornado Warning and the touchdown of a tornado -- ranged from 12 minutes to 55 minutes, providing critical time for the emergency message to sound NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio and television and tornado sirens. For Enterprise, Ala., the preliminary tornado lead time was 18 minutes.



New storm-based warnings, introduced by the NOAA National Weather Service in January (to be fully operational nationwide in October), helped to better pinpoint the path of yesterday's tornadoes resulting in a reduction in the area warned, as compared to the previous county-based warning method. The Tornado Warning that included Enterprise, Ala., included a 71 percent reduction in areas that did not need the warning.



Teams of NOAA National Weather Service meteorologists were on the ground conducting damage surveys Friday in order to determine the Enhanced Fujita Scale rating, wind speed range, approximate times, width and path of each twister.



Preliminary NOAA Forecast Timeline for the Enterprise, Ala., Tornado

• February 27-28: NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., indicates High Risk of severe weather for the Southeast U.S. for March 1.
• March 1 9:45 a.m. Central Time: Tornado Watch issued by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center.
• 12:47 p.m. CT: Tornado Warning issued for Alabama's Coffee County, including Enterprise, by the NOAA National Weather Service in Tallahassee.
• 1:05 p.m. CT Tornado hits Enterprise, Ala. Lead time is 18 minutes.

Photos courtesy of NOAA.