GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – In a matter of minutes, a tornado with wind speeds of 70 to 95 miles per hour caused extensive damage in parts of Kaukauna on Tuesday night.
For many, it begs the question: why didn’t Kaukauna’s tornado sirens and NOAA weather radios go off?
Kaukauna’s emergency manager, the man in charge of triggering the sirens there, addressed the question this week with FOX 11:
“Unfortunately in this particular case, the weather service did not have the city of Kaukauna under a tornado warning, and that’s the simple answer to the question is we weren’t under a warning therefore the sirens don’t sound,” said Jake Carrel, who doubles as the community’s fire chief.
FOX 11 turned to the National Weather Service in Green Bay to ask why a tornado warning wasn’t issued for the area.
“So for this event, just the way it unfolded, it was a big line of storms, with lots of like the potential for embedded very quick spin up tornadoes within the system, so these are basically the hardest for us to forecast because they’re fast-moving as well,” says Kurt Kotenberg with NWS Green Bay.
Kotenberg explains that unlike tornados that recently ravaged the Midwest, the tornados we saw this week weren’t always clearly identifiable on radar.
He says NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning with potential for 70 mph winds at 8:47 on Tuesday, and just minutes later, at 8:52, it was upgraded to ‘tornado possible.’
“Just given the nature of the system, we could see the potential for maybe a circulation here, but again it’s such a fast-moving system, it is moving 60 mph to the northeast, so everything is just happening so quickly with these, by the time you get a tornado warning issued, the storm could have lifted.”
That’s what FOX 11 Chief Meteorologist Patrick Powell says, too.
“They’re dealing with these big lines of thunderstorms with little rotations inside that line all over the place, so you put out a large severe thunderstorm warning with a considerable tag with the caveat that there could be tornados that pop up in that line it’s just the tornados in those situations are very quick, very hard to notice, and they’re gone before you can issue a warning in most cases.”
Repeatedly on social media, NWS warned of the possibility of tornadoes, despite them not being clear on radar.
“Unfortunately in Kaukauna [it traveled] just a couple of city blocks and then it lifted, so just very quick very brief and this one just fell unfortunately a populated area,” Kurt adds.
“And like you said, by the time you recognize that there was one of those spin-ups and you’re getting ready to send out a warning, it’s already over?” asks FOX 11 reporter Marlo Lundak.
“Pretty much, in this environment, yes,” he replies.
Even without the official tornado warning or sirens, officials in Kaukauna say the communication from NWS and local meteorologists helped the community prepare as best they could.
“We did have advanced notice of the storm coming and it did arrive when forecasters said it would arrive, but, and I think that is why we see no injuries in this event because a lot of people did heed those warnings.”
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