DAVENPORT, Iowa — Thousands of Iowans are still picking up after a powerful derecho blew through the Midwest two weeks ago. The National Weather Service is working to improve its severe weather warning system to get communities the information they need during a dangerous storm.
"Really for this type of system [a derecho], our warnings are not really going to give people time to do all the types of preparations you would for a hurricane," says Rich Kinney, the National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist.
Kinney says the derecho formed so quickly from mild thunderstorms, it was difficult to predict just how powerful it would get. As soon the wind speeds started picking up, higher levels of warnings were issued.
"A derecho of this intensity for our area is a roughly a one in a decade occurrence," he says.
The storm triggered outdoor warning systems and the News 8 App sent out weather alerts. But Kinney says many people received short warning about this storm since it wasn't the type of storm to set off automatic alerts sent through cell phone providers. He says that cell phone alerts currently only happen for tornadoes and flash flooding.
That's why even before this storm, Kinney says the National Weather Service was working to expand its automated warning system to include severe thunderstorm warnings.
News 8 Chief Meteorologist James Zahara knows how important it is to get storm warnings out to people.
"I knew it was going to be an interesting afternoon for us," Zahara says of that day, "because when you're dealing with a derecho, it doesn't really lose its character as it races from west to east."
Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power and cleaning up a big mess. Several people died because of the storm and the National Weather Service wants to ensure people have the information they need when they need it as these dangerous storms come in.
The new warning system could be in place within a year.
Kinney says it's important people have multiple ways to get severe weather information, from cell phones to TV to weather radios, in case one of those fails or runs out of battery.