More Severe Weather Possible In The Mahaska County Area Tonight
National Weather Service weather outlook for April 30th, 2024.
April 30th, 2024 – Mahaska County, Iowa – Oskaloosa News spoke with Mahaska County Emergency Management Coordinator Josh Stevens about the severe weather that impacted the County over the weekend while he shared an update about Tuesday night’s potential for severe weather.
When it comes to damage over the weekend, Stevens shared, “We mainly saw limbs or partial tree damage. Some of those limbs took down power lines and a couple of poles were leaning. Thankfully, the fire department and public works were able to get to those quickly. MidAmerican Energy was called to a number of locations to deal with downed electrical lines.”
According to MidAmerican Energy’s website, power was out in several portions of the County, including Barnes City, Beacon, Leighton, New Sharon, Oskaloosa, and rural Mahaska County, with the rural part of the County seeing approximately 2400 customers without power, while 1800 were without power in Oskaloosa.
Rainfall from the storm varies from 1/8 of an inch to 1/2 of an inch.
There were questions about the outdoor storm sirens and why they weren’t activated, and Stevens shared with us the criteria needed to activate them.
“The severe thunderstorm warnings listed an expected wind speed of 60 MPH. The threshold that most counties use which is based on data from the NWS is 70 MPH or greater for siren activation. Thankfully, we didn’t see the larger size hail with this storm,” said Stevens.
In Mahaska County, the storm siren activation policy is that we activate for the following criteria:
1. Tornado Warning issued by NWS
2. Tornado reported by a trained spotter or radar indicated from NWS
3. Wind speeds 70 MPH or greater
4. 1.75″ or larger hail (golf ball)
To help Mahaska County residents stay up to date with severe weather information, Mahaska County Emergency Management has ‘Mahaska Alert’, and residents can sign up for that by going to https://mahaskaready.com/mahaskaa-ert and then select ‘Sign Up For Alerts.’
“Smart911 lets people customize their alert preferences. Email, text, phone call or any combination of those. It will also let people select what types of weather they want to be warned about. It’s very easy to use, and if you forget the password, the website will help you reset it quickly. This system is used statewide for severe weather alerts so people can direct their friends or relatives to the website even if they live in another county,” Stevens explained.
He also recommends having a NOAA All-Hazards weather radio in your home and says it’s an excellent time to change the batteries in that radio at the same time you do your smoke detector.
Stevens also said to monitor local TV, radio, and social media outlets for updates.
For tonight, the National Weather Service in Des Moines has produced a weather briefing concerning tonights potential for severe weather.
* WHAT – Severe storms capable of large hail and damaging winds. A few instances of hail greater than 2 inches in diameter and wind gusts to 80 mph may occur. A few tornadoes are possible.
* WHERE – Much of Iowa, but the highest threat area generally over the western and central portions of the state.
* WHEN – Storms develop west mid to late afternoon and track east through the evening hours.
As always, Oskaloosa News will share the latest watches and warnings on our Facebook page HERE.
