I have watched the refreshing screen the NWS has for all the watches
and warnings for severe storms and tornadoes. I have noticed that at
times they will display, over a period of many hours, many dozen
tornado warnings as red dots. However, when I check the pages with the
actual storm reports on the following days, it shows only a few. In
fact, in appears that of all those tornado warning dots, that perhaps
10 and at most 15% of those tornado warnings actually formed a
tornado.

Now, if this is in fact true, then what about those tornadoes that are
confirmed where a warning was _never_ even issued?

What is the accuracy rate of [issued tornado warning vs confirmed
tornadoes]?

Also, what is the percentage of times when an actual tornado hits the
ground _but_ was never associated with a warning?

One more thing: My local area has 3 tv stations. 2 of them have their
own doppler radar. Only one station uses some software known as VIPIR.
How accurate is this VIPIR? Is it more advanced or am I relying far
too much on the VIPIR results?

Another pet peeve is that my local stations refuse to break into
programming to give updates. Sure they break in when a warning is
issued but it would be nice to have short updates on whether the storm
system is stregthing or weaking. I mean, they could literally do this
update in less than 20 seconds at most.

Since the outbreak of storms on october 24, 2001, I have developed an
irrational fear of storms. I have convinced myself that every tstorms
is going to produce a tornado. It rules my life now. I am constantly
checking the SPC outlooks, local weather, and needing to know exact
times of storm events. I do not sleep or leave home during storms, no
matter how extreme or tame they are. I share this with you because I
have wondered if anyone has this height of panic over these things
besides me? I literally have to take hand fulls of anxiety meds during
storm outbreaks. Lots of klonopin, ativan, etc.

I know this is not a therapy group of psych group but I just had to
get this off my chest. This fear is literally killing me. I do believe
if a tornado was within 5 miles of me I would die of a heart attack
well before the tornado hit the house.

Anyway, I hope some of you can answer some of my questions and help me
with this irrational fear I have of tstorms.
I also hope you can pardon me for interrupting a scientific newsgroup.

thank you for your help.
Ted