A forecaster on Forecaster HQ has been publishing a severe weather outlook every day this month. Not a snowfall map, not a city forecast: a convective outlook, drawn the way the Storm Prediction Center draws theirs, with a general thunder area, a marginal risk inside it and a slight risk at the core.
Watching how they used the site showed us where it fell short. Our severe scale started at Marginal, so their general thunder areas had to be filed as Marginal. To revise an outlook they republished it and typed "(OUTDATED)" into the old title. This month we fixed both, and a few things around them.
The scale, the way the SPC uses it
Severe forecasts now use the SPC's six categorical levels, in the SPC's colours:
- TSTM - general thunderstorms, no severe risk
- MRGL - Marginal (1 of 5)
- SLGT - Slight (2 of 5)
- ENH - Enhanced (3 of 5)
- MDT - Moderate (4 of 5)
- HIGH - High (5 of 5)
Draw your areas from the outside in - general thunder first, then each higher risk inside it - and the map reads like an SPC Day 1 outlook. If you label an area "SLGT" and file it as Slight, the page says it once, not "SLGT Slight".
Update it, don't republish it
Convective outlooks change through the day. Now a published forecast has Update this outlook: you edit it in place, add one line about what changed ("Slight risk nudged east into Tallahassee"), and publish the update.
- The link stays the same, so anything you've already shared still points at the latest.
- Your followers get the update marked "Updated:", not a second forecast.
- Earlier versions are kept on the page with their times, so your record stays honest.
Your page opens on today's outlook
Your forecaster page now leads with your current outlook - in its own colours, with a legend and the time you last updated it - and lists earlier outlooks below. The forecast page itself opens on the same dark map with labels on each band, and the interactive map is one click away.
Post it where your audience is
A lot of weather forecasting happens on YouTube Shorts and TikTok now. Every drawn storm forecast has Download for Shorts: a tall 9:16 video where your areas fade in from general thunder to the highest risk, with your name at the top and your page's address at the bottom. It records in your browser in about ten seconds.
Try it
You don't need an account to draw: start from the map image maker, pick "Severe risk", and draw your areas. Create a free page when you want to publish it, update it, and let people follow you.