{"id":9377,"date":"2016-12-04T23:53:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T04:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=9377"},"modified":"2016-12-05T00:09:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T05:09:27","slug":"do-you-have-a-severe-weather-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2016\/12\/do-you-have-a-severe-weather-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you have a severe weather plan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In view of the latest round of severe weather that hit the Southeast ahead of a strong cold front on November 29-30, I think it is a good idea to remind\u00a0each of you to assess what your plans are for your home and office and any meetings you may hold. \u00a0My husband the meteorologist was attending a large meeting on the 30th in a conference hotel in NW Atlanta and was dumbfounded to discover that a tornado passed less than a mile from the site and the hotel staff never bothered to notify the meeting attendees in a big upper floor room that there might be some danger, even though the tornado sirens and a number of folks’ cell phones went off. \u00a0I was also horrified to find out that our local school district held the buses for a tornado warning but let them go back on their routes during a subsequent severe thunderstorm warning. \u00a0Neither of these is acceptable behavior in my book!<\/p>\n

For your office you should have a designated place to shelter in case of a tornado or severe thunderstorm warning. \u00a0Don’t assume that the weather is less dangerous because it’s a “severe thunderstorm warning” rather than a tornado warning–straight-line winds can be just as deadly as tornadic winds. \u00a0In addition to having a shelter identified in advance of any storms, you need to have multiple ways to get any warnings the National Weather Service might put out. \u00a0A NOAA weather radio is a great thing to have in your office, but you have to have it turned on for it to be useful. \u00a0Apps for smartphones are also useful as long as they reflect your location accurately, and often give very timely information (although apps\u00a0are less useful for forecasts). \u00a0Don’t count on sirens to warn you–many areas do not have sirens and they are generally designed only to warn people outside since most buildings are designed to muffle outside noise.<\/p>\n

If you are planning a meeting, make sure that you keep an eye on the weather in advance of the event, especially if people will be driving long distances to get there. \u00a0I had to ask meeting organizers to cancel a climate and ag workshop two days before the meeting was scheduled because of an ice storm in the area that would have stranded meeting attendees in rural South Carolina with no power or food for a couple of days. \u00a0They had no idea the weather could be an issue. \u00a0In the Southeast, tornadoes and severe weather can happen in any month of the year, and so it is especially important for you to monitor weather conditions ahead of and on the day of the event to make sure your attendees will be safe both at the site and coming to and going from the meeting. \u00a0Let them know where the shelter in the meeting place is, too.<\/p>\n

In the same vein, here is a related story from Weather Underground<\/em> on how nighttime tornadoes are much more deadly than daytime tornadoes. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Most likely because people don’t have their cell phones, television or weather radio on and have no warning that severe weather is occurring. \u00a0You can read the article at\u00a0https:\/\/www.wunderground.com\/news\/nighttime-tornadoes-deadly-study?__prclt=DUWUdxjU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Source:<\/a>
Source: National Weather Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In view of the latest round of severe weather that hit the Southeast ahead of a strong cold front on November 29-30, I think it is a good idea to remind\u00a0each of you to assess what your plans are for your home and office and any meetings you may hold. \u00a0My husband the meteorologist was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-severe","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9380,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377\/revisions\/9380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}