Do they close parks w/ tornado WARNINGS?

[Threehearts]

I'm watching the weather channel right now and it looks as if Orlando is one of the areas under a tornado warning, not a watch. Just curious if they keep the parks open during what appears to be a personal safety concern. Not trying to alarm anyone and I could be mistaken but the map shows Orlando in the center of a red warning box. Threehearts

 

[Samirella]

The parks do remain open during tornado warnings. If they were to close everytime there was one, the parks would never be open in the summer as we have them all the time.

 

[Threehearts]

Thanks for the response. I has no idea that they were that frequent. Susan

 

[TammiMcMan]

We were actually in the park when a tornado touched down in the Kissimmee area. Within minutes of whatever warning they received, the cm's had the park walkways completely cleared and guests were ushered into buildings. We happened to be put into the Alien Encounter building. It probably lasted about 20 minutes in total, but it was amazing to see how quickly they reacted.

 

[Ted and Holly]

One thing to keep in mind is that Central Florida weather channels and the National Weather Service use extremely high resolution radar. They can tell the difference between heavy rain, wind, wind shear, revolving storm cells. Everything.

A Tornado Warning is issued when the NWS computer detects revolving cells that COULD produce tornados. They are not tornados until they touch the ground. Funnel clouds are seen when the revolving storms begin to lower and build a little. These do not always turn into tornados.

The high resolution radar can fairly accurately detect problem cells, the direction they are moving, and their heading.

On a national map, "Orlando" is a general term for most of Central Florida. Local maps and radar show the 30 mile distance between Orlando and WDW.

Watching for most of today, there were no concerns for WDW property directly. There were some confirmed tornados around, as close as Kissimmee, but none heading towards WDW.

It is good to hear that WDW takes these seriously. We have been to Typhoon Lagoon during the normal afternoon thunderstorms. They do clear out the pools, but they seemed very lax about the whole situation.

Ted