The Storm Prediction Center has five thunderstorm outlook categories or levels, with five being the highest.
Birmingham, Alabama-based ABC 33/40's Chief Meteorologist, James Spann (pictured above) says there's some confusion. He prefers phrases like “Level One out of Five" or "Three out of Five."
“The lowest level is marginal and then the upgrades are slight, enhanced, moderate, and high. And here's the problem: Most severe weather days, it's on a slight risk (day) and people hear the word slight and they think, 'Well nothing's going to happen. There's just a slight chance of severe weather,' and that's very confusing. Then the other problem, people don't understand why a moderate risk is a higher risk than an enhanced risk. They think enhanced ought to be higher than moderate, and they're right."
He said another issue is people moving into areas prone to severe weather from other parts of the U.S.
“They’re just not used to tornadoes and severe storms, and all of this can be so confusing. Then you tell them, 'Well, most of our severe weather days are on slight risk days,' and that makes absolutely no sense."
He believes social scientists have helped with severe weather messaging.
"I think the social science integrating with physical science is going to be a great help in years to come. Ultimately, those risk categories, those words will be tossed out. We get in these conferences, we sit around these tables and go to these meetings, and we wind up doing what's best for us, and that's ridiculous. It doesn't matter, we're not here for us. We're here to help the public."
He went on to say there are more storms and tornadoes on slight risk days due to there being more days where a slight risk category is issued.
