It’s officially Severe Weather Awareness Week and each day will look at a different weather topic with today being centered around severe thunderstorms. 

For Monday of Severe Weather Awareness Week Dallas County Emergency Management Coordinator A.J. Seely says severe thunderstorms can happen at any time and Seely talks about what it takes to make it severe. 

“A severe thunderstorm has some specific criteria that it has to have to be considered severe. We can have some higher intensity thunderstorms that aren’t necessarily severe but to be severe a thunderstorm needs to have winds of 58 miles per hour or greater or one inch hail or larger. So, a lot of times we can get some of the smaller hail and we can think that’s pretty severe but it doesn’t meet that official definition to be considered a severe thunderstorm. ”

Severe Weather Awareness Week will run from March 21st to March 25th. Also, the Raccoon Valley Radio Severe Weather Action Team will provide live coverage any time there is a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning in Dallas, Guthrie or Greene counties until the severe weather has moved out of the listening area or has dropped below severe levels.