When to move an event indoors?

Dan Snyder

Hello friends, looking for some feedback for a colleague.

For those of you who hold commencement outside, what is the weather criteria for moving things indoors. Specifically how many miles away does the storm/lightning have to be to move things indoors? Thanks in advance!

Janet Davies

@Dan Snyder I work for a sports organization, where almost everything is outdoors, and we start moving people to shelter when the lightning is within 15 miles.

Dan Snyder

@Janet Davies Thank you!

Faith Murray

@Dan Snyder, this is probably too late to be useful (I assume commencement is over for the season), but my two cents is that it depends on the region and the severity. Here in the Midwest, winds can move quickly, and 15 miles may only take 10-15 minutes to reach. Can you reasonably move all your people in 10 minutes? If we knew a severe/tornadic storm was heading our way on the radar (keeping in mind wind direction), we would be planning about 30 miles out. If it were just a little bit of lightning and spotty rain, we might wait till it's within 5-10 minutes of us.

Dan Snyder

@Faith Murray Thanks. We did have commencement this past weekend and I got connected with out local NOAA office and they were willing to call me if lightning came within 10 miles. I also had an app that would notify me of lightning in the area (not sure the radius).

All that to say, we got through the main dinner (outside under a large tent) and as we were walking away I got a call from NOAA so weather was certainly on our side!