Extreme Wind & Hail Conditions Added to Smartphone Emergency Alert System

New Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) will send certain National Weather Service thunderstorm warnings to smartphones across Nebraska. When a storm is expected to reach 80 mile-per- hour winds or higher and/or baseball-sized hail or larger, an alert will be sent to people in affected areas.

The system already works for tornado and flash flood warnings.

Brian Smith with the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska said the weather service has thought about adding extreme wind and hail conditions to emergency alerts for a while.

“What came to a head was probably the derecho of last year, last August 10th that led to this,” he said. “People don’t realize that you can get down burst winds or straight line winds that can be extremely hazardous or tornado-like.”

A derecho is a prolonged and widespread wind storm, which occurred last year, starting in eastern Nebraska and going as far east as Ohio. It was the most costly thunderstorm in United States history, with more than $10 billion in damage.

Additionally, Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) saw its largest power outage ever in early July of this year from a thunderstorm reaching 90-plus mile-per-hour winds.

Smith said emergency alerts won’t be issued frequently because the minimum conditions are rare.