weather: watch vs warning

[darkoshi]

Poll #23217 Weather terms: Watch vs Warning

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

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Without looking it up, do you know the difference between a "warning" and a "watch", in terms of weather events?

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Yes
2 (28.6%)

No
2 (28.6%)

Unsure
3 (42.9%)

If you answered Yes, which is more likely to be dangerous?

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Watch
1 (14.3%)

Warning
1 (14.3%)

I did not answer Yes
5 (71.4%)

If you answered No or Unsure, which do you think is more likely to be dangerous, without looking it up?

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Watch
2 (33.3%)

Warning
2 (33.3%)

Neither sounds worse than the other
1 (16.7%)

I answered Yes
1 (16.7%)

The TV scrolled a severe thunderstorm message along the bottom of the screen, a warning for some counties, and a watch for others.

But I can never remember the difference between a watch and a warning, which is more severe, without looking it up: https://weatherworksinc.com/news/watch-vs-warning

Without looking it up, my first instinct may be that a warning sounds worse than a watch. But I do remember that one means that a tornado or storm has been sighted, and the other one means that conditions are simply favorable for one. So then I become unsure; it seems to me that "watch" might mean that one has been sighted, and is being watched. Whereas a warning might just be a warning that one could occur. In my profession, a *warning* is one of those things you get when running a program that can usually be ignored (it informs you that something *may* not be as you want), as opposed to an *error* which means that something went really wrong.

So, I wonder if other people have the same problem distinguishing between the terms too or not.