If your business is not ready for severe weather, it could significantly impact your property, people, and profits. Here are three actions your business should take to plan ahead of the storm.

By Adrianne Burke, Director of Content Marketing | AccuWeather For Business

Published Mar 17, 2025 3:19 PM EDT | Updated Mar 17, 2025 3:37 PM EDT

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What are you going to do to improve your severe weather preparedness?

No matter the forecast - heavy rain, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, flooding, or extreme weather events-your business must prepare for weather-related impacts. Whether it’s logistical issues, business disruptions, or employee safety, you must be ready for whatever comes your way. That starts with the help of the meteorologists at AccuWeather For Business, who can help you improve your current severe weather plan, and if you don’t have one, we can work with you to put one in place. Here are three things you can do to help your business and employees better prepare for the severe weather season.

• Check severe weather communication lists for out-of-date information

One of the challenges with many businesses lately is high turnover - meaning more staff is coming and going. That creates a problem for safety personnel and everyday employees. New employees may not be familiar with the company’s emergency plan, and safety personnel must educate them. That takes time. It also jeopardizes the plan because people don’t know what to do. Also, communication lists may not be the most up-to-date. Do you know how to contact all of your employees, both in-office and remotely, if there is a tornado warning? If not, make sure you update everyone’s contact information.

• Don’t wait for the tornado near their building before sending employees to shelter

Many organizations still wait to see a tornado before sending employees to shelter. Management and safety personnel need to have a conversation to determine when your employees should seek shelter. Most tornadoes are on the ground for less than a mile and not more than a few minutes, but your facility and your people could still be a target. Businesses in the Southeast should be mindful of this because that is where we see a lot of severe weather at this time of the year. Tornadoes are very frequently obscured by rain. In the Southeast, they are even more frequently obscured by trees and terrain. If you can see it, it will be too late.

AccuWeather's SkyGuard^® Warnings can help your business by:

• Offering early, clear, and concise weather threat notification

• Issuing SkyGuard Tornado Warnings only if tornadoes are expected to come within three miles of the site

• Informing site leaders with SkyGuard Reviewed Notifications or when government-issued warnings relate to storms not expected to produce a tornado within three miles of a site

• Companies should work with local fire departments to confirm that they’re sheltering in the right location

Speak with your local fire department to have them verify your sheltering location. They can help you determine if it is safe, with nothing dangerous nearby, and that it is big enough to hold all of your employees. They can be a good asset for your company to be better prepared for severe weather.

What can you do?

Deliver weather safety training, sheltering, and evacuation training for all employees. Make sure all employees know where to shelter, when they should seek shelter, and when they can leave shelter. The first couple of moments of a tornado warning can be hectic. Knowing these things ahead of time can help save lives.

Participate in a tabletop exercise with AccuWeather For Business. You can test your business processes, whether shutting down equipment, getting people to shelter, or getting critical information out to employees. A couple of hours doing exercise could save lives.

Complete a business impact assessment for critical systems that a weather event could disrupt. It’s a chance to take a closer look at your plans and identify what is critical. It will also let you put parameters in place. For example, determine which outdoor assets could be in danger of a lightning strike or what wind speed thresholds for elevated platforms. AccuWeather For Business can help you through this process.

Here’s how we can help. Accurate forecasts and warnings allow companies to plan better and keep their teams and customers safer. As an example of our Superior Accuracy™, when tornadoes are in the forecast, we provide 16 minutes of advance notice compared to an average of 8 minutes from other sources.

Be proactive with AccuWeather's SkyGuard^® Warnings, which will deliver site-specific alerts and offer warnings well before severe weather hits, giving you much-needed time to be prepared.