You Don't Want To Receive THIS New Type Of Severe Thunderstorm Warning

Damage from a severe thunderstorm in Sheldon, Vermont
in July, 2019.  From now on, particularly dangerous
thunderstorms will trigger Wireless Emergency 
Alerts on your smartphone

If you ever receive a "destructive" severe thunderstorm emergency alert on your smartphone, you're in BIG trouble. 

The National Weather Service has introduced a new scale of severe thunderstorm warnings, one of which will trigger a Wireless Emergency Alert on your phone. 

Tornado warnings and warnings of particularly dangerous flash flood warnings automatically go to most phones, triggering an alert wherever you are that danger is on the way.  

Severe thunderstorm warnings don't trigger automatic phone warnings.  At least they didn't, until August 2.

Now, sort-of-bad severe thunderstorms still won't trigger a phone alert. But the nastiest ones will. If meteorologists think the storm heading your way packs winds of at least 80 mph and/or has hail as big or bigger than baseballs, you get an alert. 

As Kerrin Jeromin writes in the Washington Post, the most severe thunderstorms are every bit as dangerous as a tornado, so they should prompt smartphone alerts, as the National Weather Service has decided.

One instance where this type of uber-severe storm would have triggered such warnings was the huge derecho in Iowa last August. These storms had winds as high as 140 mph.  This was the most expensive thunderstorm disaster in U.S. history, causing at least $7.5 billion in damage. The storms also killed four people.

This new warning system was not in place at the time of the August, 2020 Iowa derecho. There were plenty of warnings the storms were coming, and those were well broadcast via Iowa media. But if somebody wasn't near a radio or TV, or weather radio, there was little warning, since there was no automatic Wireless Emergency Alert on their phones. 

Under the new policy if God forbid the Iowa derecho happened again, there'd be that automatic alert on everyone's phones.

There are two other levels of severe thunderstorm warnings under this new system that will not trigger those smartphone Wireless Emergency Alerts. 

 "Base" warnings tell you to expect wind gusts of at least 58 mph hail the size of quarters. The "considerable" version gives you winds of 70 mph and/or hail the size of golf balls.   

These two lower level thunderstorm warnings should still be taken very seriously. As always, local media and a handy weather radio will broadcast these quote,  unquote lower level warnings, and you can get phone apps that will alert you as well.

The type of huge 80+ mph storms that will trigger the Wireless Emergency Alerts comprise about 10 percent of all severe thunderstorms.  The rest are in the 58 to 79 mph range, or have hail smaller than baseballs.

The 80+ mph storms are pretty rare here in Vermont but they can and do occur. On occasion, we've had derechos roar in from Ontario and Quebec or from the Great Lakes to cause destructive thunderstorm winds here. 

Information is power. Those Wireless Emergency Alerts can be annoying, but boy they come in handy when the crap is about to hit the fan.