Can Tornadoes happen with ZERO warning?

I remember the 1990 Plainfield tornado and how there was no warning. It was such a hot, humid day. I watched it swirling in the sky above our house immediately before the storm hit and we had to run for cover. The tornado touched down in the field in front of our house about a half mile away. It was an unforgettable experience and I’m so thankful it hadn’t touched down before it passed over us. I’m probably one of the few people that actually saw it before it became rain wrapped.

I'm a storm chaser and even I experienced an unwarned tornado. Just after midnight the night of March 6th 2017, a squall made it's way across MO, and I watched a very obvious QLCS tornado develop about 25 miles west of me. It had the inflow notch, it had the little mini-couplet, and it had the CC debris ball. I watched it track about 20 miles over the course of 25-ish minutes. It was well within radar range, too. It lifted a few miles west of my town, the couplet disappeared, and then I found out the next morning that a second tornado dropped about a mile north of my house and went through the middle of town. Fortunately they were both only EF1s with a few minor injuries, but that storm was not tornado warned at ALL during it's entire lifecycle. NWS St. Louis is very liberal with warnings now after that fuck-up.

There was a QLCS tornado in December 2019 outside of Tulsa that wasn't detected until 2 minutes after it had already touched down. It was only a few blocks away from me, I was watching the squall come in when the warning happened and I scrambled into the shelter. Thankfully it was only an EF0 and nobody was hurt.

I used to be super paranoid about storms before my daughter (at the time age 9) wanted to become a spotter (she loved watching Reed and Tim Samaras). I remember the day she became fascinated with storms. I had my lap top in my lap watching the radar on the loop (Like I said I was paranoid). The kids new that as soon as we went warned we would have to run down stairs to the basement. We lived in the mountains so my husband and kids would tease me - they never lived in Kansas. The radar loop went full purple and I yelled at the kids as I grabbed the baby rushing down the stairs. We were not even half way down when it went right over our house (luckily) snapping the huge shade tree about 25 feet up before it flung it down (took out the back deck and left my house). If that tree had falling flat we would probably not been lucky. A friend of ours (Volunteer Fireman) happened to be driving home and say it from about a mile away. He drove up to our house in a hurry to make sure we were safe. That storm never even had a Sever Thunder Storm Warning on it. Tons of damage all around us. From that day she was hooked - we did the classes and watched endless shows... spotted around our house . Until Tim died. She cried for days. I cried for days. My heart is with his family.

I've experienced an unwarned tornado, but thats because the UK doesn't have a tornado warning system, while tornados are some what common and happen every year in the UK we just don't have a system for it as we don't tend to get destructive ones, and a lot of the radar products except reflectivity are not publically available. i'm also pretty sure the UK only got doppler capabilities in 2019. We had a little spin up tornado from a linear storm system that came through, mostly because the hilly western coast of Scotland tends to provide uneven orthographic lift and it does funky things to storms. I've found the difference in weather coverage and the public access to weather information a bit whiplashy when I moved to the USA last year. It's really been an experience and a half. The one tornado we did get near by here last summer (which is rare because its upstate NY) was warned with plenty of time. I was impressed.

I'm a 30+ year experienced spotter, sighted over 120 local tornadoes. And still our local NWS in Ohio (ILN) chose to ignore us spotters most of the time then not. One such incident was the Blue Ash Ohio tornado when several of us called in and were ignored... 4 people died that morning.

I live in northwest arkansas, and just a couple weeks ago we had a tornado come through springdale, which is right in the middle of our population Center. It ended up destroying an elementary school gymnasium, and destroying several trailer homes in the trailer park, and demolished a warehouse before going on to dissipate in our airport. There was zero warning, the first tornado warning did not pop off until approximately one minute after the tornado had lifted, there were 7 injuries. Worst part is this occured at 4 Am. There was one trailer that had three trees fall on it, and a man was pinned under the tree

As someone who spends a lot of time in Charlotte, I definitely agree there needs to be another radar built, maybe in Concord or Gastonia. It's frustrating when I'm trying to look at different radar sites and none of them really show the reflectivity with any quality

Although I've been a tornado junkie since I was a 12 year old kid and saw the '65 Palm Sunday tornado form (I lived outside Pittsfield Oh.) I have never learned so much about tornado radar signatures as you presented in the 8 minutes 37 seconds of this video. Good job sir.

The radar hole part hits so much harder after the event of Friday (nov 4) where many possibly violent tornadoes touched down in the radar holes of the arklotex region.

In Ohio, back in the early 90's, we lived right across the street from the fire station where the sirens were. Nice day, we're out on the porch when a tornado just dropped out of the sky over the woods and right at us. I had time to grab my toddlers hand to run inside, and it came so fast it lifted the toddler off the ground. No injuries, no real damage, but it dropped like a missile out of the sky. The sirens never did go off.

Back in the old days, a QLCS was known as a squall line. I’ve seen a spin-up appear and disappear quickly during those storms. Great video content as usual. 👍

To me the late night twisters while your sleeping is a terrifying possibility. My phone would give me a alert which is a good thing, but scrambling in the middle of the night for cover would not be fun.

I grew up near the Charlotte area (1993-2012). I remember a few instances of hearing about people spotting a funnel or tornado, but no warning from news stations, which baffled me. This explains a lot.

When I was a kid in the mid 2000's, I lived in Emigrant Montana. One day I was playing in the yard when I noticed a dark funnel shape going all the way to the ground across the valley beneath a large dark cloud.

I remember taking 1 good look at that thing and then running straight for the house. By the time I got to the house and notified my parents it had lifted and disappeared.

Just goes to show that these things can spawn in out of nowhere. Even in the mountain ranges.

A decade or so later I remember seeing a couple of tornados out on the flat lands near Scobey Montana. Not sure how big they were but they didn't look particularly small. I think we were still rocking flip phones at that point. No looking up radar in those days.

I mean, the Knoxville EF2 tornado that happened last week happened only under a severe thunderstorm warning and never a tornado warning. Additionally, the EF3 wedge in northern New York wasn’t warned until it was gone already, but luckily, I was watching meteorologist Andy Hill and he pointed out the debris ball.

Back in the early 80s (i wasnt around yet), my family in Edmonton experienced an F4 tornado on what is now called Black Friday. Tornados were not known to happen in the area, so most hadnt even heard of a tornado. As a result there wasnt a need for adequate tornado detection. My grandfather knew someone who lost his wife, kids, even the dog. The tornado is one of the biggest environmental disasters in the area, only suprassed by the drought of the 1930s.
Almost every time i see a rotating cell, it seems to follow a similar path that the tornado took. I also noticed that any type of weather seems to be stronger along that path. Rip those driving through that on the east side of the Henday o_o

Last summer, as I was road tripping back home from my college, my dad and I drove past a tornado as we were driving through Arkansas. We knew about it because I was checking Twitter and had found more amateur livestreamer filming it. The National Weather Service didn't issue any tornado warnings until after it had lifted. People were pissed off but luckily no one was hurt (or killed). Just some property damage.

I have experienced two bad tornadoes in the past 8 years of my life. An EF3 that was 2 miles away from our house and an EF2 that was 6 miles away from our house. One leveled a whole trailer park and the other destroyed 3 houses. We knew they were going to happen long before they touched the ground. We live in the southeast where we rarely see tornadoes and we still got great coverage and knew what was going on. I am impressed and very thankful for the National Weather Service.

Yesterday in Western NY we had a squall line come through and my area was under a severe thunderstorm warning. Minutes later the NWS tagged it as a TOR possible & there was some rotation showing! No tornado though, just wind damage. Also, I am a storm spotter and I could not be happier to be one! ♥️

Edit: NWS just confirmed there WAS a tornado!!! EF-0