Open-source tornado detection · MRMS · CONUS + southern Canada · every 2 minutes
A neural network that reads the radar, and a public record of every time it was wrong.
TIMA scores live MRMS data for tornadic signatures, tracks candidate circulations, and projects a path cone. Every high track is later checked against NWS warnings and storm reports, and the results — hits, misses, and false alarms — are published here on a daily cycle.
Verification, in public
scorecard recomputed daily 08:15 UTC · full tables →Named misses
Events where TIMA produced no useful track. Each is documented, not buried.
How to read these numbers
Warning anticipation joins each official tornado warning to the strongest prior TIMA track near it. False-alarm rates are computed per score band over every ended track, against warnings and settled storm reports.
Track scores are signature strength, not calibrated probability of a tornado. Reports settle over days; recent rows are provisional. All lead times carry the measured 3.2-minute data latency.
This is not a warning source. It is a research tool that runs in public. For warnings, use your NWS office or NOAA Weather Radio.
Evidence library
All case files →Each case pairs the track's frame-by-frame scores and projected cone with the official timeline — warnings, reports, and surveys. Not claims. Receipts.
How it works
Ingest MRMS
Composite reflectivity and azimuthal shear (0–2 km and 3–6 km) every two minutes across the full mosaic, including the southern Canadian Prairies.
Score each storm
A compact CNN scores 64×64 boxes around every rotation signature. Trained on five years of verified tornadoes and a full season of hard negatives.
Track and project
Detections link across scans into persistent tracks with fitted motion, descent ratio, and HRRR environmental context. Strong tracks get a widening, right-biased path cone with arrival-time marks.
Verify daily
Every morning the scorecard rejoins all tracks against NWS warnings and storm reports and republishes itself — the numbers are allowed to get worse in public.
Known limitations
- QLCS spin-ups and non-mesocyclonic landspouts are documented weak spots — brief, shallow, or sub-radar circulations.
- False alarms: most high-scoring rotators never produce. The rate is measured per band and published, not hidden.
- MRMS latency (median 3.2 min) is measured and already subtracted from every lead-time claim.
- Path cones assume motion persists and widen with uncertainty. A right-turning storm can exit any cone. They are not warning polygons.
- Single operator, homelab hardware. Outages happen and show in the scorecard's gaps.
Help label data
StormSwipe shows one radar frame at a time: tornadic or not. Expert labels — especially from meteorologists and spotters — feed the next training run directly.
Open StormSwipe