Severe Weather Awareness

Ok so this week has been declared Severe Weather Awareness Week in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This includes the annual checking of each state's weather announcement systems. Now here is my small rant about these announcement systems... in the state of Wisconsin the sirens are not controlled by the weather service but instead by each municipality. In the state of Wisconsin the warning sirens are used not only for tornado warnings but for severe thunderstorm warnings. Not this causes a great amount of problems. For instance I am a Minnesota resident so sirens are only sounded when there is an actual tornado warning in the area. I have always taken this sound very seriously. It usually involve me and my mother shooing my two younger brothers downstairs and me gathering blankets and flashlights as quickly as I can while my mother tunes into the weather station for more information. So naturally we I heard the sirens sounded in Eau Claire, WI during Sunday's storms I flew from sitting on my bed to gathering my laptop and cellphone in my arms and started to move downstairs. That is when I remembered that Eau Claire used the sirens for thunderstorms as well. I was unsure whether I should still be concerned or not. Instead I returned to my room and checked the alerts on my laptop.

How am I supposed to tell the difference between a thunderstorm or a more serious tornado. My other roommates even ignored the sirens all together. This is not ok! The sirens should warn of immediate danger to the area not just weather concerns. In the case of a real tornado I don't believe that any Wisconsin residents would be properly warned to take cover because they would think it was just a thunderstorm if they even took notice of the sound at all. I believe that many residents have become desensitized to the siren sounds altogether.

Just to put things in perspective throughout last Sunday's Wisconsin storms there were in fact 10 reported tornado touchdowns throughout the state. Which is the largest number of touchdowns in a single day in the month of April recorded for the state. The warning for these events should not be taken lightly. Citizens need to be aware of possibly weather dangers and alerted properly based on the situation.