Main Page

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!

We have collaboratively explained 6 xkcd comics, and only 3261 (100%) remain. Add yours while there's a chance!

Latest comic

Go to this comic explanation

Types of Tornado Alert

|< < Prev #3267 (July 3, 2026)

Title text: I hate the unearthly sound my phone makes when the weather service issues a tornado harbinger.

|< < Prev Random Explanation

Explanation

This comic describes the idea of a tornado alert and then humorously extends it to decreasingly dangerous situations, soon reaching increasimgly farfetched warnings, which don't help to prepare for a tornado at all.

A table showing these warnings is below:

Types of tornado alerts

Alert	Description	Explanation
Tornado warning	A tornado has been detected; take shelter	This is a fairly normal warning. Obviously a tornado actively happening is a big threat, and a warning is fairly reasonable for tornadoes.
Tornado watch	Conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form	This is another obvious one. If a tornado could form, being careful for one is a good idea.
Tornado precaution	Tornadoes happen sometimes, so be ready
Tornado inkling	No tornadoes yet, but we have a feeling
Tornado suspicion	Weird clouds have been observed
Tornado premonition	Tornado portents and omens have been observed
Tornado recollection	Tornadoes have occurred in the past
Tornado contemplation	Tornadoes are very big and powerful
Tornado harbinger (title text)	I hate the unearthly sound my phone makes when the weather service issues a tornado harbinger.

Transcript

[There are multiple panels showing different scenes, prefixed by some label beginning with "Tornado" and followed by a description.]

Tornado warning

[Silhouette of a tornado spraying dust on the ground. To its right is a house and a dead tree.]

A tornado has been detected; take shelter

Tornado watch

[Hairbun stands in front of a board containing two graphs (one a skew-T log-P) and points to it with her right arm. Cueball is standing, facing her.]

Conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form

Tornado precaution

[Cueball stands with his arms out.]

Tornadoes happen sometimes, so be ready

Tornado inkling

[Cueball has his hand on his chin, looking to the right.]

No tornadoes yet, but we have a feeling

Tornado suspicion

[Cueball is standing outside looking at several clouds, including a cumulonimbus.]

Weird clouds have been observed

Tornado premonition

[Cueball stands to to the left of a pole with a crossbar that has been driven into the ground, and is leaning to the right. Upon the pole two black birds are sitting, and beside the pole is a skull. In the background, more birds form the shape of a tornado.]

Tornado portents and omens have been observed

Tornado recollection

[Cueball has his hand on his chin, looking to the left. He has a thought bubble, containing the silhouette of a tornado.]

Tornadoes have occurred in the past

Tornado contemplation

[Cueball is sitting on a cube, with his arms in his lap, and facing left.]

Cueball: Wow.

Tornadoes are very big and powerful

Is this out of date? .

New here?

Last 7 days (Top 10)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 20 16 20 TheusafBOT 2 10 6 10 YZ100 3 9 5 10 Capycapybara 4 9 6 8 DKMell 5 7 3 8 GSLikesCats307 6 7 1 10 7amithorn 7 7 5 6 FaviFake 8 6 1 7 Mtcv 9 5 1 6 Barry Margolin 10 5 2 4 Vaedez

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes, memes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.

• If you're new to wikis like this, take a look at these help pages describing how to navigate the wiki, and how to edit pages.

• Discussion about various parts of the wiki is going on at Explain XKCD:Community portal. Share your 2¢!

• List of all comics contains a complete table of all xkcd comics so far and the corresponding explanations. The red links (like this) are missing explanations. Feel free to help out by creating them! Here's how.

Rules

Don't be a jerk. There are a lot of comics that don't have set in stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to —and helping everyone better understand— xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited.) Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, feel free to leave a message on their personal discussion page. The list of admins is here.