Particularly Dangerous Situation

Storm warning phrase used by the U.S. Storm Prediction Center

A Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) is a type of enhanced wording first used by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), a national guidance center of the United States National Weather Service, for tornado watches and eventually expanded to use for other severe weather watches and warnings. It is issued at the discretion of the forecaster composing the watch or warning and implies that there is an enhanced risk of very severe and life-threatening weather, usually a major tornado outbreak or (much less often) a long-lived, extreme derecho event, but possibly another weather hazard such as an exceptional landslides.