Northwest Iowa — This is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Iowa. Each day this week the National Weather Service is focusing on a different severe weather topic.
The topic today is weather warnings, and how they are received. The National Weather Service says that one of the most important precautions you can take to protect yourself and your family from severe weather is to remain weather aware. Being weather aware means you are informed of the weather forecast and alert to the potential hazards.
Warning Coordination Meteorologist Peter Rogers with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls says two of the products they issue in relation to severe weather both start with “w,” but that’s where the similarities end.
Weather service officials say that no matter where you are, you should have a way to receive weather watches and warnings. For the big ones, like tornado warnings, many communities have outdoor warning sirens to let people outdoors know about severe weather. But they advise that these are really only to let people outdoors know about severe weather. And if you’re inside, or traveling down the road, we suggest you listen to our comprehensive severe weather coverage on KIWA.
And that leads us into Wednesday’s severe weather topic — the statewide tornado drill, when we’ll be testing our Emergency Alert System equipment with a test tornado warning and many communities will be testing those sirens, weather permitting. They do say that if there’s any chance for confusion with actual weather, they may move the test to Thursday or Friday.
