we get our weather service out of Sioux Falls
but mostly I think it's still just guys looking at their radar , and weather station data , looking for wind speed shifts and cloud rotations , barometric pressure dropping quickly
but like with most all weather systems , usually there is a watch that proceeds any warning , , so you are usually already aware the possibility of bad weather ,
while they were dealing with severe thunderstorms down south , we were actually going through a pretty good snow storm here in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota ,, were we got 9-10 inches of snow with 50 MPH winds , but we knew it was coming days in advance
same with thunderstorms , you usually know their chances are coming days in advance , and tornado watches go up hours before they approach , it's just pinpointing a tornado location and time , that gets pretty tricky , and often with little , or no no warning at all
but cell phones have helped alot , like pretty much everyone else , have a couple weather apps on their phones , so you're always getting weather alerts
and from looking at the damage there in Kentucky , even though the death toll is now around a hundred , it's just a miracle the death toll wasn't in the thousands