We are heading into severe weather season in the US soon (and by soon I mean tomorrow) (disclaimer, this is all general advice. pay attention to the official weather sources in your area for alerts and important information. I am not an expert, weather info is just a hobby for me.)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS) has (for now anyways) the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) which is a great source of information to stay weather aware.
The SPC puts out Convective Outlooks. These show where thunderstorms and severe weather have the potential to pop up. (With temperatures warming up, the movement of warm air leads to convection in the atmosphere which results in thunderstorms and sometimes severe weather. There is a good blog post going into more detail here)
Specifically, the outlooks are:
Day 1 Outlook (today and early tomorrow morning)
Day 2 Outlook (the next 24 hours following early tomorrow morning)
Day 3 Outlook (the next 24 hours)
Day 4-8 Outlook (the next days, but these are never too certain due to the way the models work)
These outlooks are timestamped with Zulu time aka Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can see how that compares to your local timezone here.
Today (3/13/25), the weather outlook is okay, just a slight risk of thunderstorms across the US. However, Friday (3/14/25) and Saturday (3/15/25) both have a widespread risk of severe weather including strong winds and tornadoes.
If you are in any of these colored regions, stay weather aware! Now, this doesn't mean you have to panic, but keep an eye on the weather reports in your area!
I tend to check the SPC in the morning so I know when I have to really be paying attention to the weather for the day/coming days.
Below is more info on the color coding which you can read more about here. (In addition here is a powerpoint from the NWS with more information "12 Things You Need to Know: Severe Weather Outlooks")
Tips on staying weather aware, it's important to have access to several weather sources.
Check the SPC for updates!
Find your closest NWS Forecast Office via zip code on weather.gov
Keep an eye on the local news and local weather reports
Consider getting a weather radio! (info here from NWS) This is good for if you lose power/internet as you can check the automated radio stations near you
Check the radar (I use the radarscope app) but you can check online with websites like radar.weather.gov or wunderground.com
Ryan Hall Y'all is a youtube channel that livestreams during most severe weather outbreaks
More weather info:
Severe Weather 101
How NOAA Satellites Help Us Stay Ahead of Severe Weather Season
How to Use and Interpret Doppler Weather Radar
TropicalTidbits - Info on hurricanes and other tropical weather
NWS - Emergency Supplies Kit Info
Weather Prediction Center - similar to SPC but more generalized
What to do During a Tornado (via NWS):
Stay Weather-Ready: Continue to listen to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio to stay updated about tornado watches and warnings.
At Your House: If you are in a tornado warning, go to your basement, safe room, or an interior room away from windows. Don't forget pets if time allows.
At Your Workplace or School: Follow your tornado drill and proceed to your tornado shelter location quickly and calmly. Stay away from windows and do not go to large open rooms such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, or auditoriums.
Outside: Seek shelter inside a sturdy building immediately if a tornado is approaching. Sheds and storage facilities are not safe. Neither is a mobile home or tent. If you have time, get to a safe building.
In a vehicle: Being in a vehicle during a tornado is not safe. The best course of action is to drive to the closest shelter. If you are unable to make it to a safe shelter, either get down in your car and cover your head, or abandon your car and seek shelter in a low lying area such as a ditch or ravine.
NOAA and NWS are under threat from everything going on right now. (Hundreds of weather forecasters fired in latest wave of DOGE cuts.) They provide vital services and do very important research about our weather and climate. While 5calls.org does not currently have a template centered on NOAA/NWS, they have similar ones that you could reference, modify, and use. (I have modified one below that you might consider using.) (5calls.org also has other very important scripts that you might use for other issues.) Please consider calling your representatives and telling them how important weather information is to everybody and that they should be protecting it, not defunding it. Not only for severe weather, but for climate change research and more.
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP].
I'm calling to demand that [REP/SEN NAME] oppose any legislation, or efforts by the executive branch to dismantle or abolish the National Weather Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The recent reduction in staff is unacceptable, and will put Americans' lives and property at risk to severe weather. Reduced warning capabilities will put lives at risk and could potentially make response and recovery more hazardous and more expensive.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
IF LEAVING VOICEMAIL: Please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.
While this is geared towards the US, a lot of this information can be applied via resources specific to your country. And finally, to quote Ryan Hall, Don't be Scared, Be Prepared.
a little tip. if you’ve ever wished that the “official” weather forecast was more detailed and perhaps even a little nerdier about the specifics, go to this page and click your city/state/ region on the map:
National Weather Service
then scroll to the bottom of the page and click this link:
this will take you to the forecasters discussion and this is a description from the NWS on what it is:
This National Weather Service product is intended to provide a well-reasoned discussion of the meteorological thinking which went into the preparation of the Zone Forecast Product. The forecaster will try to focus on the most particular challenges of the forecast. The text will be written in plain language or in proper contractions. At the end of the discussion, there will be a list of all advisories, non-convective watches, and non-convective warnings
not only is it written in plain language, but it also contains a glossary and clickable links for certain terms so you can learn what they mean on the fly if you need to better understand the forecast. it’s updated multiple times a day and with increased frequency when there is an extreme weather event impacting the area.
extremely valuable service that the NWS provides and a lot of people don’t know about it. this is the kind of thing that should never ever ever be paywalled. but they want you to pay a subscription fee for it.
it’s also important to note once again that the NWS costs each tax paying American just 4 dollars a year and returns a 73:1 return on investment with its current budget. but naturally, it’s only “good economics” if it benefits the shareholder and the board member, not the citizen and the taxpayer.
Every tornado death can be attributed to the Trump Administration. They cut funding to the NWS and NOAA. Every hurricane, flood, blizzard, fire, or other weather related death is on his fucking hands barring the victims own stupidity. We spent decades building up our forecasts and warning systems just for him to tear it down. A lack of funding means meteorologists cant do their jobs correctly.
I dare one of you maga peasants to tell me "but the weatherman is never right" because I will rip you a new asshole. I have the meteorology knowledge to fuck you the fuck up so try me bitch.
there’s a lot of stupid scary shit in project 2025 but killing the national weather service for me (a weather nerd who has hyperfixated on this kind of stuff for years) is one of the least thought through decisions, especially with how bad tornadoes and hurricanes have gotten over the years.
like… the NWS is who alerts people about oncoming tornadoes… take that away and now you have thousands of sitting ducks who don’t know that death is barreling toward them. Despite all of the rampant destruction we’ve seen from tornadoes in even the last year alone, deaths from those events have remained in the single digits. Why? Because the NWS and NOAA have worked tirelessly to increase the amount of warning time people have between when a tornado is spotted and when it’s predicted to hit. If I remember correctly, they’ve managed to bring it from seconds of advance warning to up to 16-20 minutes, time that is instrumental in saving lives. Take that away, and now you have people scrambling around trying to figure out what’s happening on their own.
Not to mention the amount of time and research they pour into predicting tragic events like Hurricane Helene and other disasters in waiting. Idk, it’s just…
Texas was left unprotected by policy and design. The rest of the country should pay attention.
Olivia Troye at Olivia of Troye:
Before we go any further, let me say this: behind every number is a human being. These aren’t just statistics, they’re children, parents, grandparents. Loved ones. Writing this wasn’t easy. Over the last few days, my emotions have swung between heartbreak and fury. What happened in Texas wasn’t just a natural disaster. It was a preventable tragedy. The more I dug into the failures, at every level of government, the angrier I became. Because I want a system of governing, from local to national, that protects all of us, not just the lucky, the wealthy, or the politically aligned. I spent most of my career working inside that system, and I believe in doing everything we possibly can to keep Americans safe.
My home state is underwater.
The Texas Hill Country just endured a catastrophic flood, one of the worst in our history. Over a foot of rain fell in six hours. The Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet above flood stage. Cabins at Camp Mystic were swept away in the dead of night. Helicopters rescued campers. Over 170 people are still missing, and the death toll has climbed to 119. Governor Greg Abbott has warned both numbers may continue to rise. This isn’t just a storm. It’s a policy failure and a warning for every community in the country. Towns across America are experiencing severe flooding, from North Carolina to California, and just this week, Ruidoso, New Mexico, a place I often visited while growing up in the southwest.
Imagine being a parent, jolted awake in the blackness of night by the roar of floodwaters. Your phone didn’t ring. The alert never came. By the time headlights flicker through the rain, it’s already too late. That’s what happened in Kerrville, Ingram, and Hunt. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued alerts on Thursday afternoon, but it wasn’t until early morning hours that the urgent flash-flood warnings raised the risk of catastrophic damage and severe threat to life. Kerrville’s mayor said it plainly: “We didn’t even have a warning.” This tragedy reflects a warning system under pressure, stretched thin by rising climate threats, and now facing questions about the timing and effectiveness of its early morning alerts.
Texas Had a Chance to Warn Its People. It Chose Not To.
In the months leading up to the deadly floods, Texas lawmakers had an opportunity to address their broken emergency alert system. They didn’t. House Bill 13, a bipartisan proposal in the Texas Legislature, would have created a statewide emergency response council, supported first responder grants, and, most critically, helped fund outdoor warning sirens and statewide emergency alert systems. It passed the Texas House but was killed in the state Senate earlier this year, mainly over cost concerns. Lawmakers are now left second-guessing their decisions.
Republican State Rep. Wes Virdell, who voted against the bill, told The Texas Tribune:
[“My vote would probably be different now… I think even if you had a warning system there, this came in so fast and early in the morning it’s very unlikely the warning system would have had much effect.” ]
But survivors say even a few extra minutes could’ve made the difference between life and death.
A Broken Federal System By Design
While Texas stalled, the federal government under Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the very systems meant to warn and protect Americans.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump and his allies have raced to dismantle our emergency infrastructure, following the extreme roadmap laid out in Project 2025 (p.166), which calls for ending federal disaster aid, privatizing weather alerts, eliminating resilience grants, and limiting FEMA to only the most catastrophic events.
Here’s what Trump’s second term has already put into motion:
Dismantling FEMA- Trump established a FEMA Review Council through an executive order, triggering a strategic reevaluation of the agency's core missions. He has vowed to phase out FEMA entirely after the 2025 hurricane season.
Canceling the BRIC Program- FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grants, vital for community preparedness, were terminated in February. That funding could have bolstered Texas’ defenses before the flood.
Quadrupling the Disaster Threshold- Fewer communities now qualify for federal disaster aid. Small towns, like those just hit, could be on their own.
Slashing NOAA and the NWS- On July 4, Trump signed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” slashing $150 million from NOAA and cutting over 800 jobs, including more than 100 forecasters from the NWS. The plan moves us toward outsourcing public weather alerts, potentially opening the door to delayed or paywalled warnings. You know that frustration when you click a news link and can’t read it without a subscription? Now imagine that same wall, but it’s between you and the alert that tells you a flash flood is heading straight for your home. The sky is black, the storm is here, and the warning you need is stuck behind a corporate login.
These cuts delay radar processing, weaken flood modeling, and reduce the lead time families have to seek safety. That’s not hypothetical. That’s exactly what just happened in Texas.
Olivia Troye wrote a very solid piece on how the catastrophic floods that ravaged Texas Hill Country could have been at least somewhat mitigated had better warning systems been in place.
Instead, inaction at both the Texas state government (failure to pass HB13) and federal government levels led to dire consequences (Trump Regime and DOGE’s cuts to NWS and NOAA, and harm to FEMA).
I have two pieces of advice for you that I’m sure you’ve heard before but I want to reiterate.
First, don’t be afraid to cut things out of your writing. Whether it’s a scene that just needs reworked from the bottom up, or if it’s a path the story took that you realize you need to backtrack and go in another direction, don’t let it scare you. The rewritten stuff will likely work even better, since you’ve written what you have and have realized it’s not right.
But second, SAVE WHAT YOU CUT. Seriously. Make a document and save it. Either a separate document for every fic, or one document with headers indicating what each section was cut from, but SAVE IT. Sometimes it’s because even if you needed to rewrite it that doesn’t make it BAD, it just didn’t work for the story you were telling, and sometimes because it’s fun to pick through for stuff you can use in other things, or later in the same story.
This message brought to you by the 4k words of fic that I found labelled “NWS cut stuff” that includes an entirely different ending to ch. 6 and beginning to ch. 7 of one of my most popular fics (nights without sleep and days that burn, if you wanted to know for some reason) that I’d forgotten I’d saved and that I actually really like! It wasn’t the right direction for the story I was telling, I’m glad I went the way I did, but this is still a really solid 4k of writing and I’d forgotten I wrote it and I’m SO glad I saved it and can revisit it!
You’ll thank yourself for doing it one day, if you do. I promise. :)
