Our Mission
Severe Weather Headquarters (SWHQ) exists to bring real-time, accessible severe weather coverage to communities around the world. Through live threshold-triggered streaming, rapid-response short-form content, and our unofficial outlooks and discussions service, the Severe Weather Center (SWC), we track and report on tornadoes, tropical cyclones, fire weather, winter storms, and flooding wherever they threaten life and property — from the Great Plains to the Prairies, from tropical basins to fire-prone terrain across the globe. Founded on a community-first philosophy, SWHQ is built by storm chasers, forecasters, and weather enthusiasts dedicated to clear, timely, and responsible severe weather communication for viewers everywhere.
About Us
Severe Weather Headquarters began in September of 2025 as a Discord community for people who wanted more than a five-day forecast graphic — they wanted to understand the weather happening around them in real time. What started as a small group of storm watchers grew into a full media operation with the December 2025 launch of our YouTube channel, bringing live coverage to a wider audience.
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From day one, SWHQ has been built around a simple idea: severe weather coverage should be accurate, responsible, and genuinely useful to the people watching — not sensationalized for clicks. That community-first approach still shapes everything we do, from how we decide when to go live to how our team treats storm chasing safety.
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Today, SWHQ is a team of storm chasers, forecasters, moderators, and members covering severe weather across North America and beyond, alongside our unofficial forecasting arm, the Severe Weather Center. Members, including you, get to experience how our impact matters most.Â
What we cover
SWHQ tracks the full range of severe and hazardous weather, wherever it develops:
Severe Weather
Tornadoes, damaging wind, large hail, and derechos
Tropical Systems
Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones worldwide, from formation through landfall
Fire Weather
Critical fire weather conditions, dry thunderstorm risk, and wind-driven fire danger
Winter Weather
Significant snow, ice, and blizzard conditions
Flash Flooding
Flash flooding and heavy rainfall events
Our coverage isn't limited to the United States. We actively track and report on severe weather across Canada (using Environment and Climate Change Canada's outlook system), Europe (using ESTOFEX's outlooks), and many more countries. We monitor global tropical activity, making SWHQ one of the few citizen weather operations providing genuinely international coverage.
Supporting this coverage is the Severe Weather Center (SWC), our unofficial outlook and alert service. SWC produces our own risk assessments and threat communication, organized across specialized sub-centers for different hazard types. SWC is not a replacement for official government warnings — it's a supplemental layer of analysis and communication designed to help our community understand risk more clearly.
Our Approach
Not every risk gets a livestream. SWHQ operates on a defined threshold framework — a set of meteorological criteria that determines when a situation warrants live coverage versus short-form updates or social posts. This means when we do go live, it's because the risk has met a real bar, not because we're chasing views.
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We hold the same standard for our chasers. SWHQ maintains a clear storm chasing safety philosophy, including directives on when chasing is and isn't approved, because we believe responsible coverage starts with responsible behavior in the field.
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This disciplined approach is what lets SWHQ scale — from a single streamer to a growing team — without losing the accuracy and trust that the community joined us for in the first place.
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DISCLAIMER
Severe Weather Headquarters and the Severe Weather Center are unofficial, citizen-run weather services. Our coverage, forecasts, and risk assessments are intended to supplement — not replace — official information from government meteorological agencies such as the National Weather Service (NWS) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Always follow guidance and warnings issued by official agencies in your area during severe weather events.
How to Help Out
The Severe Weather Headquarters community relies on member data to maintain precise historical records. By submitting observations through storm photos or videos, you help us refine our analyses and build a robust archive for future professional meteorological research and scientific investigation.
ARCHIVED PRODUCTS
AS OF DECEMBER 2025
View our climate and convective database. The archive is the technical foundation for community meteorological research and for conducting verification of historical weather data patterns.
Note: Some days may be missing due to outlooks not being available. We apologize for the inconvenience