David Payne, NOAA explains rare 100 mph winds and life-saving alerts
News 9 Chief Meteorologist David Payne and Todd Lindley with NOAA National Weather Service Norman explain how severe weather alerts are issued.
Can you break down the different levels of severe thunderstorm warnings?
Todd Lindley: Starting in 2018, severe thunderstorm warnings were assigned what we call an impact-based warning category, or a tag at the end of the warning, which indicates the level of severity and the magnitude of the threat posed by that particular severe thunderstorm.
The highest category is what we call the Destructive Severe Thunderstorm Warning. That designation is used for severe storms that have the potential to produce winds greater than 80 mph and hail larger than baseball-sized…