During a severe thunderstorm, the National Weather Service typically sends an emergency alert to cell phones letting people know of a thunderstorm’s location and duration.
Now, the service is adding a tag to that message - to differentiate between a destructive thunderstorm and a considerable or baseline one.
Steven Frietag is a forecaster for the National Weather Service based in White Lake. He said the goal is to give people a better idea of a storm’s potential damage and allow people to respond accordingly.
“People do get fatigued (since) we issue a lot of severe thunderstorm warnings,” Frietag said. “... Certainly most people will not even see severe weather even though they're under the warning. With those considerable tags there, you can feel a little higher confidence there's gonna be a little more widespread, greater extent of damage than the normal.”
For a “destructive” tag, a thunderstorm will have the potential to bring down baseball sized hail or 80 mph winds. A “considerable” thunderstorm can bring golf ball-sized hail or 70 mph winds. The criteria for a baseline thunderstorm remains unchanged at quarter-sized hail or 58 mph winds.
Tags and additional messaging are designed to promote immediate action, based on the threat level. Alerts without a damage tag are expected to be at the baseline level.
“It's just to heighten more awareness and get people to react more when we're seeing stronger, severe cells,” Frietag said. “(The tags are meant) to really draw your attention when you see those considerable ones if you’re on the fence (on how to respond to thunderstorm warnings).”
Frietag said the decision was likely coordinated by emergency managers after conducting surveys and studies to gauge the need.
The NWS said that approximately 10% of severe thunderstorms reach the destructive category each year in its July 22 press release.
The change will go into effect nationally Aug 2.
To learn more about severe weather, visit the National Severe Storms Laboratory here: https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/
This story was produced as part of the Michigan News Group Internship. A collaboration between WCMU and eight community newspapers. Teresa is based at the Huron Daily Tribune.
