they would post on the bottom of your TV. So as a kid I watched a lot of TV and I would see the empty storm cloud which meant thunderstorm warning and if it was full it was more serious....alert. Those could quickly change to a tornado and when there was a shaded in tornado on screen I would simply freak out as a lot of times my parents were not there.
Of course they would also have the interruptions with the tornado warning and the loud beep with the robot sounding guy issuing the warning.
One thing about West Texas, the storms are brutal with the very loud thunder(never heard anything like that in California) and the crazy lighting storms.
RIP Bucky - 7/25/1943 - 1/19/2013