This tool can be checked too often
If you find yourself counting again a few minutes later, and again after that, it has stopped being a measurement and become a way to manage the feeling. A tenth count answers nothing the third one did not.
For anyone frightened of storms. Understanding for the ones that are only loud, and a plan for the ones that are not.
Part one
During the storm
You are in it right now.
The measurement
Why counting works
Light reaches you instantly. Sound takes about five seconds per mile. So the gap between flash and rumble is a measurement, not a guess. This is the five second rule: count the seconds, divide by five, that is the distance in miles.
You learn where the storm actually is, which is usually further off than it feels. And you have something to do, which is often the more useful half.
That is why it works with a frightened child. Counting is a job and it is theirs. Keep the split: the counting is theirs, the judging is yours. A child left to weigh the danger has been handed the part that feeds the fear.
30
seconds: go in
Thunder within thirty seconds of the flash means the storm is about six miles out. Close enough to be in range.
30
minutes: stay in
Wait half an hour after the last thunder. A large share of lightning injuries happen to people who went out when the storm looked finished.
The feeling
What your body is doing
Pounding heart, shaking hands, tight chest, a stomach that has dropped. That is adrenaline, and panic does not damage a healthy body.
It runs out on its own. A storm keeps sending new surges, so still shaking forty minutes in does not mean anything has gone wrong.
This page will not tell you it is definitely just nerves. Chest pain, pain down an arm, or simply not being sure: treat that as a medical question and call a doctor or emergency services.
Make the out-breath longer than the in-breath
In for four, out for six or eight, for a minute or two. The long out-breath does the work. It will not make the storm quieter. It shortens the climb down.
Feet flat, back against something
Shaking is muscle primed to move with nowhere to go. Supported back and feet on the floor give it something to push against.
Sounds
What that noise was
A long, low roll
A bolt is miles long, so sound from the far end arrives after sound from the near end. Rolling is distance, not danger.
A sharp crack with no roll
Close. Stay inside, away from windows, plumbing, and anything plugged in.
The rain suddenly stops
Usually the worst is behind you. It can also fall between two lines of storms, so check before going out.
A steady roar that does not fade
Straight-line winds, far more common than tornadoes. Whichever it is, you do the same thing: go to the place on your plan.
Hail on the roof
Loud out of all proportion to its size. Most hail is small. Keep away from skylights.
Part two
How storms work
Most of the fear is not knowing.
Two words
Watch or warning
Watch
It could happen. Not yet.
Conditions are right somewhere across a large area over the next several hours. A watch covers many more people than it ends up affecting. Read the plan, charge a phone, bring in what is loose. Then get on with your day.
Warning
It is happening now, near you.
Radar or a spotter has seen it. Small area, short window, usually under an hour. Go to the place on your plan. Take your phone and your shoes. Stay until it is lifted, not until it sounds quieter.
A severe thunderstorm warning means damaging wind or large hail. It is not a lesser tornado warning, and the winds can do the same damage. A tornado warning means go now, without checking the window first.
Reference
The numbers worth knowing
1 in 10thunderstorms reach severe. The other nine are loud, wet and harmless.
1″of hail, or 58 mph winds, or a tornado. That is what makes a storm officially severe.
~25mph is how fast a typical storm travels. Six miles out is about fifteen minutes away, and most places sit under one for twenty to thirty minutes. It has an end time.
10miles is how far lightning reaches beyond the rain. If you can hear thunder, you are in range.
Formation
Where a tornado comes from
Not random, not sudden. Three things have to line up in order, and most storms never get past the first.
One
Faster wind up high than down low rolls the air between into a horizontal tube, like a pencil spinning across a desk. This happens constantly and does nothing on its own.
Two
A strong updraft lifts the middle of that tube and stands it on end. Radar sees this, which is where most of the warning time comes from.
Three
Air sinking at the back of the storm squeezes the column narrower, and anything spinning speeds up as it tightens. If it reaches the ground, that is a tornado.
This is why forecasters can say days ahead that a Thursday looks capable, and why a warning is a small area for a short time rather than a whole state all night.
Screens
Does looking at radar help?
For many people, yes. Seeing where a storm is, which way it is moving, and when it clears turns open-ended dread into something with an end time. For others it becomes the problem. The difference is not the app. It is what happens after you look.
Which one is it for you
Look once. If you feel settled, radar is helping. If you open it again a few minutes later, and again, it has become a way to manage the feeling, and that makes the feeling stronger over time.
Leave the official alerts on
National Weather Service warnings reach your phone on their own. Leave those switched on. A phone that buzzes all evening is usually a weather app's own extra notifications, separate from the official alerts.
What the colors actually mean
They show how hard it is raining, not how dangerous a storm is. A big red blob is not automatically the one to worry about, and a modest-looking cell can be the one that gets warned. Color is a rainfall scale, not a threat scale.
Leave rotation to the professionals
Velocity views take real training to read, and hunting for tornadoes yourself is a fast route to seeing one in every storm. That job is already being done, and the result arrives as a warning.
If you know you are a checker it is reasonable to skip radar entirely, but only once phone alerts or a weather radio are set up to reach you, because you may not always receive a warning.
Part three
Getting ready
Do this on a clear day. Deciding while frightened is the hard way.
Equipment
Worth having in the house
Categories, not brands. Nothing here is sponsored and there are no links.
The one that matters most
A weather radio with battery backup
Program it to your county. It works when the power is out and the towers are congested, which is exactly when a phone alert does not arrive.
Phone emergency alerts
Free, probably already on. Check once.
Shoes where you shelter
Broken glass is the injury nobody plans for.
Flashlight and a whistle
A whistle carries further than a voice.
A charged battery pack
Outages outlast storms.
The plan
Make the plan on a clear day
Writing it down now, in good weather, is the single most effective thing on this page.
What you type is saved on your device only, in your browser. It is never sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data erases it, so print a copy. Some of it is about other people, a neighbor or a relative's number, so treat the printout accordingly.
Our storm plan
Where we go
Lowest floor, middle of the building, no windows.
What we take
Head injury is what actually hurts people, and most families already own bike helmets.
How we find out
One source, not five. Five is how you end up refreshing all night.
If we are not at home
Mobile homes and RVs are not safe in high wind, whatever they are anchored to. Pick the sturdy building you will drive to before a watch is issued, not during one. In a car, get into a real building.
Where we meet if we are apart
Two places, in case the neighborhood itself is closed off.
Our out-of-town contact
Everyone checks in with the same person, and it should be someone far away. Local lines jam first. Text rather than call.
Where the pets go
Carrier or leash, and where it lives so nobody is hunting for it.
Who needs extra help
Someone in the house, or a neighbor who would not hear a warning.
Nothing filled in yet.
A finished plan fits on one page. When these are answered you are done. Read it out loud with everyone once. A plan nobody has heard is just a piece of paper.
A warning means go now. A watch means get ready. Official alerts: weather.gov
Part four
More help
If storms are a bigger thing in your life than one loud evening.
The name for it
There's a word for this
Fear of thunder and lightning is astraphobia, in the same family as fear of heights and deep water.
2 to 3 in 100
have it strongly enough to count as a phobia, ten or fifteen kids in a school of five hundred. Far more find storms unpleasant without reaching that line.
It responds well to treatment
Better than most fears, and better the earlier it is addressed. The usual approach is exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy: learning how storms work, then getting comfortable a step at a time with someone guiding the steps. Those are the words to use when you ask for it. Exposure therapy, or CBT for a specific phobia.
Signs it's worth talking to someone
Dread for days before a forecast rather than during the storm. Avoiding travel or going outside. Losing sleep on nights nothing happens. Checking you cannot stop.
All of this is information, not medical advice or treatment. If any of it sounds like you, a doctor is a good person to say so to.
Go to the source
The official sources
The National Weather Service is where every app and channel ultimately gets its information, free and direct. If you bookmark one page about storms, make it one of these rather than this one.
About
Who made this
I was the kid this page is for. I prayed every night there wouldn't be a tornado while I slept. When the sky went that particular color I was already on my way to the basement.
What helped was learning how storms worked. Once I could read the sky, the anxiety stopped happening to me. That was enough for me. It is not enough for everyone, and there is no shame in needing more than a page like this.
I still watch storms. These days I make a game called RadarWrangler, where you catch storms on live radar. Same instinct to understand and take control, thirty years later.
I hope it is some use to you on a loud night.
— Paul S.
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