Now think of how many times you can think of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of your location. It's probably safe to say that you can think of some examples. Below you'll see an example of the Oklahoma City metro area where the large blue circle represents such an area. You should be able to imagine that the probability of having severe weather occur within such an area is much larger than the probability of having it occur specifically within your neighborhood. Keep this in mind as we head into the discussion of the probability values that you may see expressed in the outlooks.
Larger values imply greater risk.
To better understand this, let's put the probability values into perspective in terms of climatology. The climatology of severe weather is very different than the climatology of precipitation. Compare the number of days that you have experienced rain at your home to the number of days that you have had large hail at your location, or even a tornado. The number of times a given location experiences severe weather in a year is much less frequent than the amount of time it experiences rainfall. This does not mean that rain will definitely occur but does mean that the forecaster believes that there is a higher than normal risk of precipitation occurring on that day.