We all know that when severe weather occurs, the National Weather Service (NWS) issues watches or warnings based on the outlooks for that day. There are several different levels of severe thunderstorms that vary on a lot of different factors. Those include wind speeds, size of hail, lightning and flooding.
Although there are currently Severe Thunderstorm Watches and Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, by July 28th, there will be a better understanding of how severe these storms are with two new categories for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings. These new alerts will also trigger an alert to all smartphones when severe weather is present in your location.
The National Weather Service now has Destructive, Considerable, and Baseline Severe Thunderstorm categories. NWS says the purpose of these different categories is “to distinguish between high-impact and low-impact events” with baseline remaining the same as the original Severe Thunderstorm Warning.
For more information on these new categories and the criteria for a severe thunderstorm, visit the NWS website at this link.
