Weather officials are saying the damage that was caused by the early Monday morning thunderstorms in Greene County were due to high winds.

Weatherology Meteorologist Paul Trambley tells Raccoon Valley Radio the peak of the strong winds during the severe thunderstorms warnings that were issued by the National Weather Service from 4-5:30am were upwards of 80 miles per hour near Glidden and sustained 60mph through Greene County, which caused straight line winds.

“Those winds are generated by the strong outflow that develops in these larger bands of these thunderstorms, kind of in the right conditions. The criteria for a severe storm is any winds over 58 miles per hour. That’s kind of the criteria that you generally start to see some sort of damage when you get close to 60 miles per hour wind gusts, whether it be due to some roofing materials, obviously some trees, especially weakened trees or older trees that are more brittle can certainly be taken by those types of winds.”    

Acting Greene County Emergency Management Coordinator Jack Williams says the situation was further complicated by the timing of when he received the warning alerts by the National Weather Service.

“There wasn’t much notice at all. When I got the call about the severe thunderstorm warning, about three minutes, four minutes later it was already here in Jefferson. So we didn’t have time to get spotters out. But we did page them to come out as soon as the storm had passed.” 

Trambley explains that sometimes a weather event can occur that causes a spin off of another event, which may have happened with these straight line winds and not much time before the National Weather Service issued their warning. Williams points out all fire departments, with exception of Rippey, along with the Greene County Secondary Roads Department, Jefferson Police Department and the Jefferson Public Works Department were all out after the storm assisting with cleanup efforts.

Williams adds the hardest hit area was Churdan and Jefferson, but no one was hurt, and there was lots of damage caused by falling tree branches and trees onto vehicles, as well as several downed power lines.