As Severe Weather Awareness Week continues in Iowa, today’s topic is receiving warning information.

Raccoon Valley Radio’s Severe Weather Action Team keeps listeners informed with live coverage of any thunderstorm or tornado warning that is issued in our primary coverage area including: Greene, Dallas, Guthrie and Adair counties. We also work with Weather Eye meteorologists to track what is happening during severe weather events, as well as track where a storm could be happening. Weather Eye Meteorologist Paul Trambley describes what is happening in an area when a warning is issued.

“It means it is happening. So if your county is either under a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning, the severe thunderstorm is occurring, and you certainly want to be in and taking cover immediately to ride out that storm in safety.”

With thunderstorms being more prevalent in our area, Trambley explains the criteria they use whenever they issue a thunderstorm warning.

“If the storm has quarter-sized diameter or larger hail, or if it has wind gusts over 58-miles-per-hour, or isolated tornado activity. Any one of those or all of those three are met, then you have a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning obviously if there has been some tornadic activity with it.”

Our Severe Weather Action Team is also in constant contact with emergency management coordinators, local law enforcement, street and secondary road crews, and storm spotters to bring listeners up-to-the-second information of what each severe weather incident is doing. The one to count on for severe weather coverage is the Raccoon Valley Radio Network.