Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3276 xkcd comics, and only 41 (1.3%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

Latest comic[edit]

Types of Tornado Alert

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

Explanation[edit]

This is incomplete:
This page was found after a tornado recollection made an unearthly noise. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

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

A table showing these warnings is below:

Types of tornado alerts[edit]

Alert	Description	Explanation
Tornado warning	A tornado has been detected; take shelter	This is a real alert that is issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) to alert people that a tornado is either imminent or occurring. Randall starts with the serious baseline to establish the premise before introducing increasingly absurd warnings.
Tornado watch	Conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form	Another real warning that the NWS uses. A tornado watch means that the atmospheric conditions, like instability or wind shear, are present, but no tornado has formed yet. This alert usually spans a large area for several hours.
Tornado precaution	Tornadoes happen sometimes, so be ready	This is the first joke entry in this comic. While being prepared for the event of a tornado is a good idea, it hardly deserves a dedicated alert, especially as this warning could be issued at any time.
Tornado inkling	No tornadoes yet, but we have a feeling	This entry relies on no steady ground for an actual tornado forming, only relying on suspicions. This does not justify an alert.
Tornado suspicion	Weird clouds have been observed	This one also relies on feelings and omens rather than firm ground. While the weird clouds could create a tornado, this is hardly valid just on its own - they are likely just normal clouds.
Tornado premonition	Tornado portents and omens have been observed	Similar to 'tornado inkling', this alert also just relies on hints and suspicions. The difference is that the omens for a 'tornado premonition' are based on folkloric and symbolic associations rather than on a gut feeling.
Tornado recollection	Tornadoes have occurred in the past	While this statement is factually correct - tornadoes have occurred in the past, and numerous more will occur in the future - this is always true, so an alert specifically for this would be useless. This alert could be an assumption that people seeing the alert don't know that tornadoes can form, so they need to be informed.
Tornado contemplation	Tornadoes are very big and powerful	This, like Tornado recollection, relies on the assumption that people seeing the alert don't know about tornadoes, and need to know that tornadoes are quite a deadly threat.
Tornado harbinger (title text)	I hate the unearthly sound my phone makes when the weather service issues a tornado harbinger.	The title text is a nod to a harbinger of doom. It points out that as tornadoes are quite dangerous events, tornado alert warnings could be viewed as harbingers of doom. The narrator claims their phone makes an unearthly sound when issuing tornado alerts, which emphasizes the 'doom' of it.

Transcript[edit]

This is one of 31 incomplete transcripts:
Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[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

Add comment

Create topic (use sparingly)

Refresh

Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

yum yum ^{[citation needed]}

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

This is the leaderboard:

Last 7 days (Top 50)

Rank	Score	Pages	Changes	Username
1	14	11	13	TheusafBOT
2	9	6	9	YZ100
3	8	2	12	GSLikesCats307
4	7	1	10	7amithorn
5	6	3	6	Capycapybara
6	6	2	6	Utdtutyabthsc
7	5	2	4	Vaedez
8	4	1	3	chris riley
9	3	3	3	DKMell
10	3	1	2	Velocifyer
11	3	1	2	Citation 307
12	2	2	2	Fephisto
13	2	2	2	Staca77
14	1	1	1	Elektrizikekswerk
15	1	1	1	Geoffrey Odhner
16	1	1	1	Somefan
17	1	1	1	David Salsburg
18	1	1	1	Logalex8369
19	1	1	1	Morpheus
20	1	1	1	Daniel Griscom
21	1	1	1	183231bcb
22	1	1	1	Ally
23	1	1	1	AmethystSky14
24	1	1	1	Lars
25	1	1	1	User 8496351

<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

‮hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)‭

Hello 107.1.219.44 19:29, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Add comment

View comic discussion

New here?[edit]

Last 30 days (Top 10)

Rank	Score	Pages	Changes	Username
1	72	62	86	TheusafBOT
2	49	36	77	YZ100
3	38	22	86	GSLikesCats307
4	25	22	24	Ally
5	21	14	25	DKMell
6	19	15	20	FaviFake
7	19	12	25	BunsenH
8	17	8	29	Barry Margolin
9	14	8	18	Capycapybara
10	11	4	18	clark

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors 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 create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.

If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules[edit]

Be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that have set-in-stone explanations; only put one interpretation in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, don’t.

Please only submit material directly unrelated to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that cannot legally be posted or freely edited. On-topic or other appropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked. Get good.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.