OK, I guess this is stupid, but the TV just told me that there is a tornado warning for my area. OK. Now what?
Do I open windows? Or hide under the bed? (I won’t fit…) I guess it is good to know one might be on its way, but I’m not sure what good it does knowing.
Keep the radio on for further alerts. Move away from windows or ground-level doorways and find a shelter–downstairs in your basement is preferable, but a place without windows (like a bathroom or a closet) works too.
Get some cushions, stay in the center of the room, and wait it out. How bad does it look out there?
Not too bad. Some rain and thunder and stuff, but no worse than any other thunder storm. In fact I think the worst has past already. I’m not sure it is even raining any more.
Whew? 
At least keep the radio and news channels on for any updates. Tornados can be sudden, swift, and deadly.
Sure it’s a tornado warning and not just a tornado watch?
Difference being the watch means the conditions are optimum for a tornado to happen, warning meaning an actual tornado has been sighted or picked up on radar.
Excellent point, and one people often tend to miss or misunderstand. To add a fillip of confusion, the National Weather Service appears to often issue storm or severe storm warnings in conjunction with tornado watches. And God help the radio announcer repeating the NWS alert who confuses the two terms!
Midwesterner answer: Go out on the front porch and watch!
NO! NO! What I meant to say was, turn off the computer and any expensive AV equipment. Unplug them, if the cords are easy to reach, if not, don’t bother. Go to the basement, if there is one. If not, go to the innermost room, the smallest room or the room with the least number of windows (usually a bathroom or large closet is good. Bring, if you have them: A crank radio or one with batteries, a bottle or two of water and a flashlight. And a book. It all gets very dull after the initial rush wears off.
Do not open the windows. I don’t know where this idea originates, but if a tornado hits, it will break the glass whether or not they are open.
Generally, if it is a tornado warning, the sirens will sound so there is no confusion. If you do not live close enough to a siren to hear it, you should get a weather radio. Tornado warning means head for cover, go to the basement, go to the closet, and get away from windows until the siren stops sounding.
I also just wanted to point out that, simply because you don’t hear thunder anymore, and just because it may stop raining, that doesn’t mean that a tornado can’t still be around. IIRC, they usually occur on the back end of supercell thunderstorms, and can sometimes hit even when the main part of the storm has passed and the sun is shining.
Of course, they can also occur in rain/hail so thick that you can’t even see the funnel, but that’s not the only circumstance to watch out for.
There’s been good advice on what to do when you hear the warning.
I always grab my cell phone, a cordless phone (hoping that, if worst comes to worse, one or the other will work), and a spare twin-size comforter, and go into an interior room with no windows–which for me right now is the bathroom. If the tub is dry, I actually curl up in it with the comforter.
I like the comforter because it gives me something to hug (I’ve been outdoors during tornados twice, and they scare the stuffing out of me), but also because if the tornado goes over, I can hide under it to protect me from small debris. No, it’s not going to help if the ceiling caves in or a cow goes flying past, but it would be good for gravel and splinters.
I have a related question - do only Midwest places have sirens, or do we have stealth tornado sirens here in town that I just don’t know about?
To the best of my knowledge there are emergency sirens originally underwritten by the Federal Office of Civil Defense in all communities of greater than crossroads size. Their function is to alert all the people, including those who may not be near radio/TV/phone, that there is an imminent emergency. Whether it’s a tornado, squall, gale-force storm, nuclear attack, or eldritch beings from another dimension is immaterial: the message of the siren is: There’s an emergency, take cover! For details, one should check broadcast media.
Do they not test the sirens in your area? In several widely scattered places I’ve lived, it’s done about once a month or once every N months, generally on the first X-day of a month at 6:00 PM or something very similar.
I’m in your general area (I live over in Hanover and work in Owings Mills). It was a tornado warning and not just a tornado watch. There was at least one confirmed tornado in the Riesterstown area (NW of Baltimore). I’m not sure if there were any confirmed tornados up on the PA side of the line.
Being the extremely safety conscious people that we are, a co-worker and I immediately went to the windows and doors to see if we could spot the tornado.
What we should have done is probably on this page:
Tornado Safety: Tornado Safety
Open a window only because last time I was in a tornado warning, lightning had struck the transformer controlling the sirens and police were driving up and down the street telling people to get under cover, as there were no sirens to do that. Got to be able to hear, doncha know.
That one hit north of town on a lake, so no damage.
Also, find out what time your city does it’s tornado siren tests, or they will scare the shit out of you the first time they go off. My hometown was the first Wednesday of the month at 11 am, my college town was the first Monday of the month at noon and every Monday during tornado season.
I think the theory was that if a tornado passed close to your house, the pressure differential might cause your house to explode. Opening the windows was supposed to prevent this. It’s total nonsense. The windows will break long before your house explodes. And if a tornado actually hits your house, it doesn’t matter what you did with your windows, because they (and the walls that contain them) will end up somewhere down the street.
The useful advice is: if you have a basement, go down there. If not, find a room with no windows, and preferably no exterior walls, and hunker down until the storm blows over.
I would guess you folks that have siren tests once a month live in areas that don’t get too many tornadoes. Ours is tested every Monday at 10:15 AM. And pretty much every business in the area has something like this or this. On November 12, 2002, the radios were credited with saving multiple lives, especially here, the town cinema. The blue section in the middle is where they had just finished a Sunday Matinee show of Santa Claus 2 that was full of kids. Another view of the cinema, and here is one looking at where the screen was. It was an F4 tornado, that killed 2 people. The main NOAA page for it is here, including some video. The tornado missed the trailer I lived in by about a quarter mile. (Silly thing missed all the trailer parks in the area. Went within a half mile of 3.) Looking at the pictures, you can see why we take tornadoes seriously here.
Of course, the scary part is, we aren’t even considered by most to be in Tornado Alley. :eek:
I lived fifteen years in a decently tornado-prone area of Canada (we’d get one within ten miles of my house once every one or two years) and I have never heard a tornado siren.
Our sirens are part of the US Civil Defense system, put in place decades ago for things like tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear attacks, little things like that. 
I am currently working in western Kansas (not that far from Greensburg) and tornados are very common here.
Usually the order is:
Tornado watch - this translates as everybody ignores it because it happens almost weekly.
Tornado warning - This is when people start paying attention to the radio and television and trying to remember what counties are around them. "A tornado has been sighted in western Stevens and southern Seward counties. Anyone in that area should take immediate shelter…"You say, “My God, what county are we in? Is it Stevens? Or is Stevens to our west? Maybe we are in Seward…”
Siren - Everyone runs outside to check if they can see the tornado. It is at this point you ask your neighbors since they are standing outside too, “What should we do?” They will take you to the nearest tornado safe basement. Here everybody brings tornado food and everyone gains about five pounds before the all clear is sounded.
Last night I googled tornado sirens in Austin and found out we have none despite being not far south of Tornado Alley. (an F5 tornado devastated Jarrell which is jsut north of here a few years ago) We do get frequent tornado watches and tornado warnings (frequent enough that many people ignore them). The University just installed some last year but the city has some concerns about effectiveness and cost. So there are even largish cities without sirens.
BTW, my experience with a real a tornado is similar to others: everyone rushes to the windows to look for it. A few years past, a tornado tail actually passed over the roof of my office building. I missed 'cause I was in the stairwell where we were supposed to be but my coworkers told me it was cool.
