I think most forget May 3rd too quickly. That tornado likely would have killed more if the media wasn't running wall to wall coverage. The fact that they were covering the storm that would eventually produce the tornado that would hit the OKC metro area (formed just south of Amber) for nearly 2 hours...gave an unprecidented lead time for tornado safety precautions to be put to use.

What a lot of people don't see, are the public yet internal (to the weather community) comments on the severity of the situation. We hear things such as "Slight Risk or Moderate Risk" of servere weather...but most in the public don't understand what it means. Then there is the level of watches. We all know the Tornado Watches and Severe Thunderstorm watches...but there is another higher level for those that is rarely broadcasted. They are called PDS Watches or Particularly Dangerous Situation watch boxes. May 3rd was an example where a PDS Tornado watch was put into effect. This past spring/summer...we've had a couple of these PDS watch boxes including the rare PDS Severe Thunderstorm watch. That even was June 16th...when they were expecting a derecho event of widespread severe winds with a line of storms. Winds were recorded up to 103 mph that day in some areas with widespread 50-70 mph winds.

My whole point...yeah it may seem over kill to the general public, but usually it is because in the background the weather community is monitoring a situation that can become very explosive and dangerous - a PDS day.

When ever there is a question about the weather...I would always highly recommend getting the information yourself. This not only educates you on understanding the difference between events, but you know how to prepare by the terminology being relayed.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/enhanced.php

Those are the two best links for the general public to use, and you'll have access to most of the thoughts and forecasts by the NWS.