Monday, June 9, 2008

What Happened to the Tornado Sirens?--Update

Last night, the siren went off near my house and we headed to the basement. After a minute or so, the sirens went off and stayed off even though the Weather Channel and radio stations were reporting Kenosha County (Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie) were under a tornado warning until 9:30 PM. Why weren't our sirens still going? I talked with people in Kenosha and they said the sirens continued all throughout warning. What gives?

I spoke with Chief of Fire & Rescue Paul G. Guilbert, Jr. and he stated that the sirens are activated by County Emergency when: 1) NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) notifies them (detects possible rotation--like you see on Weather Channel); or 2) a Police, Fire , or trained spotter sees a funnel cloud or tornado. The siren will go off for about three, one minute cycles and that's it; no continuous cycling. Then you are dependent on radio and TV for updates for when emergency is over (he suggested a NOAA Weather Radio in case power goes off; I told him I had recently won a NOAA Emergency Radio that has a hand crank from The Weather Channel emergency preparedness contest). There is NO all clear signal (holdover from the 1950's Civil Defense Days) but you may hear more than once if multiple sightings (like in January--three times/three cycles). I told him that we can also hear the Illinois sirens and that it can sometimes be confusing as to which ones are going off. He did state that high winds can also affect people's ability to hear sirens and that some people did call because their sirens did not go off.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard them around 9:30pm. My wife thought it was the TV...and we were already in the baasement.

Anonymous said...

The sirens did the same thing at my house. Just a guess, but it may have something to do with the fact that the NWS now issues more "area specific" warnings. Up until this past year or so, warnings would be issued for an entire county. If I'm not mistaken, the NWS changed their procedure to only issue the warning for the portion of the county affected. After hearing the sirens at my house, I went on the internet and noted that the tornado warning area did not cover the southeast portion of Kenosha County, which included my house. This could explain why the sirens continued to sound in other parts of Kenosha. But like I said, this is just a guess on my part.

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