Northern Jiangsu is located in the alluvial plain of the lower reaches of the Huaihe Rive, near the Huanghai Sea with a dense water network. Special terrain and climate condition cause tornadoes happen more common there.

On July 20, 2022, it is extremely rare that Jiangsu suffered four tornadoes'attack in a single day. Jiangsu meteorological department analyzed and increased encrypted monitoring, making the successful warning of three tornadoes within 11 to 29 minutes in advance for the safety of life.

On July 18, Jiangsu meteorological office publishedImportant Weather Reportto notice that intense convection would appear along Jianghuai.The office forecasted wide intense convection and mentioned the possibility of the tornadoes in local areas on the next day. Meanwhile, the meteorological administration collaborated with the local emergency management department and releasedmeteorological disaster response the tips sheetwith intense convection graded potential forecasts for tornadoes potential areas, calling for extreme wind defenses.

From 2017 to 2020, based on China Meteorological Administration Department of Forecasting and Networking's tornadoes observation and warning experiment, Jiangsu meteorological department carried out an in-depth tornadoes study. And they enhance the research on tornadoes forecasts and early warnings from several aspects, like potential forecasting and proximity warning technology, which based on muti-band radar cooperative observation network of north Jiangsu. They also set up a comprehensive warning tracking platform for intense convection and a database of typical tornado cases there. The Jiangsu government issued relevant politics to incorporate meteorological disaster defense into the comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation system.

The forecasting and early warning technology of intense convention observation were fully applied in of 7.20 tornadoes in practice. Based on the network, the features of tornadoes were quickly recognized. And they use cyclone and tornadoes vortex features technology to update its pathway every 6 minutes. Three tornadoes in Xiangshui county of Yancheng, Huaiyin district of Huai’an and Guanyun county of Lianyungang were precisely warned. The warning was advanced to 11 minutes, 13 minutes and 29 minutes respectively.

Faced with the tornadoes, the whole meteorological departments of Jiangsu were associated with other departments to make defense. National, provincial, city and county meteorological departments strengthened joint defense, publishing thunder and wind warning signal through multi-channel.

After Jiangsu meteorological department and the local emergency management department requested to implement the mechanism of emergency and “call-to-action”, the forecasters arrived at the tornado scene to make safeguard service, tornadoes intensity rating and disaster investigation. Other relevant meteorological administration collaborated with public security, electric power and other departments to get into post-disaster rescue work.

After the disaster, the meteorological office collected tornadoes features to analyse the cause of formation and summarized experience. Xiangshui meteorological administration also produced a disaster analysis report for affected areas that lack actual measurement data, helping the villagers to obtain insurance claims.

Editor: JIANG Zhiqing