February 15, 2022
Kansas and Missouri Severe Weather Preparedness Week (SWPW) will be held the week of March 7 to 11, 2022. Each day of the work week will have a specific theme or topic to promote. These themes are:
Monday – Receiving weather info/Have a plan
Tuesday – Tornado Safety
Wednesday – Lightning Safety
Thursday – Severe Thunderstorm safety
Friday – Flood Safety
This year’s tornado drill will occur on Tuesday, March 8 at 10 AM. There will not be a backup date. We encourage you to promote this drill as an opportunity for schools, businesses, and households to practice sheltering as if it were a real tornado.
This year, in order to avoid confusing the public, we will not be sending out a live tornado warning on NOAA Weather Radio, but rather will send out a Routine Weekly Test (RWT) message with verbiage asking people to practice sheltering. We encourage emergency management to sound their outdoor warning sirens as part of the drill as many have done in the past. Please help us by publicizing this drill in advance of and on the actual test date.
Each National Weather Service office will have numerous social media posts throughout the week and we encourage your organization to share our posts, and/or develop your own using the schedule of daily themes above. You can find preparedness information for the week online now at the National Weather Service website.
