National Weather Service creates new “destructive” severe thunderstorm cellphone alerts

(KRDO) -- With an uptick of extreme weather in parts of the country, the National Weather Service created a new "destructive" severe thunderstorm warning category that will trigger wireless emergency alerts on mobile phones.

The NWS says while severe thunderstorms can be life-threatening, not all severe storms are the same. According to the NWS, hazardous conditions range from tornadoes, large hail storms, and widespread straight-line winds called derechoes, cloud-to-ground lightning, and flash flooding.

In an effort to better convey the severity and potential impacts severe thunderstorms cause, a "damage threat" tag will be added to Severe Thunderstorm Warnings beginning August 2.

The NWS has developed three categories of damage threat for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, ranging in order of highest to lowest damage of threat are destructive, considerable, and base.

• Destructive damage is at least 2.75 inch diameter, baseball-sized, hail and/or 80 mph thunderstorm wind. This tag will automatically activate a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) on smartphones within the warned area
• Considerable damage is at least 1.75 inch diameter, golf ball-sized, hail and/or 70 mph thunderstorm winds. This will not activate a WEA
• Baseline or "base" severe thunderstorm warning remains unchanged, 1 inch, quarter-sized, hail and/or 58 mph thunderstorm winds. This will not activate a WEA. When no damage threat is present damage is expected to be at the base level

NWS says the new destructive thunderstorm category will convey to the public urgent action is needed, a life-threatening event is occurring and it may cause substantial damage to property.

For more information on the new damage threat tag, click here.

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