Extreme Weather Alerts Now Available on Smartphones

The National Weather Service has updated the way it will send out emergency notifications of extreme weather to smartphones.

The National Weather Service’s new Wireless Emergency Alerts will be issued for the most destructive severe thunderstorms. They have developed three categories of damage threat for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings. The categories, in order of highest to lowest damage threat, are destructive, considerable, and base.

The criteria for a destructive damage threat includes at least 2.75 inch diameter (baseball-sized) hail and/or 80 mph thunderstorm winds. Warnings with this tag will automatically activate a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) on smartphones within the warned area.

The criteria for a considerable damage threat is at least 1.75 inch diameter (golf ball-sized) hail and/or 70 mph thunderstorm winds. This will not activate a WEA.

The criteria for base severe thunderstorm warning remains unchanged, 1.00 inch (quarter-sized) hail and/or 58 mph thunderstorm winds. This will not activate a WEA. 

On average, on ten percent of all severe thunderstorms reach the destructive category each year nationwide.

All National Weather Service Severe Thunderstorm Warnings will continue to be issued and distributed via weather.gov, NOAA Weather Radio, Emergency Alert System and through dissemination systems with National Weather Service partners. The addition of damage threat tags are part of the broader Hazard Simplification Project to improve communication of watches and warnings to the public.

KPGZ Weather - Brian Watts contributed to this story