April 7-11: 2008 Wyoming Severe Weather Awareness Week
National Weather Service to do a Test Tornado Drill on April 9th
by Pinedale Online!
March 25, 2008
The week of April 7 - 11 has been designated as 2008 Wyoming Severe Weather Awareness Week by the National Weather Service. The NWS encourages educators, media and program managers to use this week as an opportunity to educate the public about severe weather and severe weather safety in Wyoming.
The National Weather Service will conduct a test tornado drill on Wednesday, April 9 to ensure that communication systems and the Emergency Alert System are properly operating. The Test Tornado Watch will begin at 10:00 a.m. MDT. This will be followed by a Test Tornado Warning issued at 10:30 a.m. and cancelled at 10:45 a.m. The Test Tornado Watch will end at 11:00 a.m.
The National Weather Service has personnel available to answer questions regarding activities associated with 2008 Wyoming Severe Weather Awareness Week, or to do live or taped interviews. Additional information is available online at: http://weather.gov/riverton throughout the campaign.
For more information, contact Chris Jones, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service Riverton at 1-800-211-1448 or 307-857-3898 ext. 726
1-800-211-1448, e-mail: chris.jones@noaa.gov.
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Editor’s Note: Just as an aside, we did some checking to see what the frequency of tornadoes is in Wyoming. According to the Wyoming Climate Office out of the University of Wyoming, our state ranks 25th in the number of annual tornadoes. Between 1950 and 2003 there were 545 confirmed tornadoes in Wyoming. Of those, Sublette County has had three. The only recent killer tornadoes occurred on August 12, 2005, when an F2 tornado hit the small community of Wright resulting in 2 fatalities, 13 injuries, 40-50 mobile homes destroyed with a damage path up to 0.25 mile wide and in Cheyenne on July 16, 1979, which killed one person. The Cheyenne event also resulted in 40 injuries and caused $25 million in damage and is considered the state's worst.
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