By the time NWS saw that the storm had strengthened, the damage had already been done. | Jill Carlson/Flickr
By the time NWS saw that the storm had strengthened, the damage had already been done. | Jill Carlson/Flickr
Stoughton city residents are questioning why tornado sirens didn't activate when a tornado touched down during a recent storm.
The National Weather Service (NWS) explains that there are several steps for a tornado siren or other warnings to be sent out, WMTV News reported. Rick Lange, a response equipment specialist at Dane County Emergency Management, told WMTV News that the NWS sends out a warning in an affected location, which triggers the system to automatically set off the sirens in that area.
"We can always manually activate sirens, but we activate the sirens based on the national weather service input," Lange said.
The recent storm posed unique challenges to the system because of how quickly it changed in magnitude. The weather strengthened and weakened so quickly, making it difficult to predict conditions.
By the time NWS saw that the storm had strengthened, the damage had already been done.
"The winds were more 35 to 50 miles per hour, and not hitting that threshold for us to go ahead and hit that warning and by the time we saw the strengthening, it had already done damage and started to move on," NWS meteorologist John Gagan told WMTV News. "The speed with which this not only moved but intensified led to a situation where warnings were issued after the damage happened."
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