Tornado watch 350 is in effect until 1100 pm EDT for the following locations MD
Maryland counties included are Calvert, Dorchester, Somerset, St. Marys, Wicomico and Worcester.
Watches are issued by the NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC), and warnings are issued by local offices of the National Weather Service (NWS).
“A watch is issued when conditions are favorable, for example, either for a severe thunderstorm or tornadoes,” AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said. “It doesn’t mean severe weather is imminent.”
Kottlowski said there are no set criteria for issuing watches, but if the conditions seem consistent with a developing severe weather pattern, watches can be changed and altered by monitoring ongoing developments.
“It can vary,” he said. “There is not just one set of ingredients; every watch may have a different set of [parameters] from one day to the next since it is based on a synoptic situation that may change within several hours.”
Warnings mean that severe weather is imminent and is based on specific criteria and existing reports received by the NWS.
The criteria include hail that totals more than 1 inch in diameter and wind speeds of 55 mph.
