I know that most American midwesterners have a granular knowledge of tornado-ology by dint of living here, but just in case you need a refresher (because this rhetorical system is NOT intuitive).
A Tornado Watch: lower-risk, BOLO situation. There are conditions (usually a severe thunderstorm) that might produce a tornado in a county or metro area. These can be multi-hour blocks of time. Try not to be more than 10 minutes from a safe indoor location, and just have a plan in the wings if it escalates to a warning; otherwise, you can mostly go about your day.
A Tornado Warning: a tornado has been spotted or is likely to touch down in your specific area. Go inside now. Put your plan into practice. Do not under any circustances get into a car to start a drive now (and if you're driving, don't park under an overpass, you're going to cause an accident and possibly harm yourself or others). These typically last for 30-45 minutes. If you're in the lower floor/interior room of a reasonably well-built commercial/residential building, you're fine; just stay there and stay away from windows.
A Tornado Emergency: you might have anywhere from six minutes to thirty seconds of warning before your shit gets properly rocked. This is not a drill. If you don't have a basement, go sit in your bathtub or an interior room. Wear shoes and bring anything that you need to quickly evacuate your space with you after the tornado passes (keys, phone, pets, wallet, flashlight, etc). I've only gotten two of these in my life, and both times I had less than 90 seconds before the sky turned green and trees started turning into shrapnel.
I too was a "go outside to take pictures with a beer" tornado person until my first EF3 (ironically, not in the midwest), when I saw a rusted stop sign get snapped in half and was immediately like "shit, the air has guillotines in it."
Remember: tornados are silent, fast, and can turn everything outside into debris that can kill you. Building-leveling EF5s are extremely rare; otherwise, the more quotidian tornado danger comes from the debris. Sign up for text alerts from your local NWS branch; don't just rely on sirens.
a missing level to this is a PDS Tornado which stands for “Particularly Dangerous Situation” tornado and is the warning right before an emergency. That said, I treat a PDS situation as serious as an emergency - this means that the tornado has been seen and confirmed, is most likely actively on the ground and causing serious damage that can be observed or seen on radar.
my indication when it’s time to hunker the FUCK down in my safest spot possible from the “confirmed tornado” under a tornado warning to the step up, i.e., a PDS tornado, involves what is called a debris signature or a debris ball on radar - that is, the debris being lofted from the tornado is significant to a level where it shows up on radar and is growing in size on radar scans. that means this tornado is strong enough that its winds are collecting debris (trees, significant parts of houses, even cars, etc.) and tossing it thousands of feet in the air, sometimes over miles. a tornado emergency is usually once a PDS tornado has begun to impact any populated areas, thus having the potential do significant damage and harm to numerous structures and people.
the most important thing to remember is that the time between a tornado warning to a confirmed tornado to a PDS tornado to an emergency can be a matter of minutes (e.g., joplin in 2011) and once you have a warning, you need to immediately take action. know your safe place, be ready to be without power, be ready to call for search and rescue (have your phone charged at the “watch” point), be ready to be hit by debris, even consider the impact of entire structure failure or “slabbing” - when a house gets wiped out to the slab of foundation it was built on.
wear thick clothes! closed toed shoes! even a helmet or spare mattress to cover yourself if your safe spot is vulnerable! AND if you’re in a mobile home, it is highly likely you do not have a safe spot inside and need an alternative plan (a safe spot outside like a ditch or fully built structure nearby to get to). you’d hope never to need these levels of precaution, but it could save your life. survivors of tornado emergencies will tell you: hope for the best, prepare for the absolute worst.
and for gods sake DO NOT PARK UNDER BRIDGES OR OVERPASSES ffs
