"Tornado" Ban??

Here's an interesting one for you on St. Patrick's Day...

From 1886 to 1952 there was a ban on using the word "tornado." Back in the 1880's the US Army Signal Corps forecast the weather for the entire country. But forecasting back then was completely different than now. John P. Finley issued generalized forecasts saying which days tornadoes were most likely. But in 1886 the Army put an end to Finley's program and banned the word "tornado" from forecasts because "the harm done by a (tornado) prediction would eventually be greater than that which results form the tornado itself." They thought that people would be trampled in the panic if they heard that a tornado was possible. Isn't it amazing that over 120 years later, we still deal with the same problems. While being trampled to death may not be the most common concern anymore, forecasters don't want to scare people with our watches or warnings. However on the other end of the spectrum, we also don't want people to get so used to the watches and warnings that they completely disregard them. This definitely applies to hurricane season...did you ever hear anyone say, "I'll stick out the storm in my home"??...definitely not a good idea!

Anyways back to the story...

The ban on the word "tornado" stayed in place until March 17, 1952. Why was the ban lifted?? A tornado wrecked 52 large aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma on March 20, 1948. That event spurred Air Force meteorologists to begin working on ways to forecast twisters. The Weather Bureau also began looking for ways to improve tornado forecasts. Therefore, the Severe Local Storm Warning Center, which is now the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma was established. The ban was finally lifted in 1952 when the new center issued its first "tornado watch."Thank goodness it was finally lifted! Here's a link to the Storm Predication Center, http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

Thanks to the weather notebook for this story.