National Weather Service Comes to Dothan

Matt Boster

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Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Dec 03 2018 3:44 PM

DOTHAN:  Today the National Weather Service came to Dothan and Houston County and with the help of Dothan- Houston County Emergency Management Director Chris Judah surveyed  the damage caused by Saturday night’s storms. They have visited the all the areas and are putting all the clues together in order to determine what caused the storm damage and will release their finding this week.

Saturday night storms hit the area with high winds and heavy down pours that caused damage and power outages on the Westside of Dothan. It’s not clear if the areas got hit by a tornado or microburst. This is why the National Weather Service came to survey the area.

November- December are the second most active months for servere weather in Alabama, with the climate changing from summer to winter and this causes unstable air masses to form here in Alabama.

Years ago tornado alley was mainly in the mid-west but over the recent years that alley has widened and now ranges from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast of the US.

Some say that global warming has something to do with the changes in weather, but whatever the reason storms are getting progressively stronger every year. The chances of a servere thunderstorm or tornadoes are just as great here in Southeast Alabama as they are in the mid-west.

It’s very important that when storms pop up everyone stays alert to the every changing weather.

Microburst: A microburst is a localized column of sinking air (downdraft) within a thunderstorm and is usually less than or equal to 2.5 miles in diameter. Microburst can cause extensive damage at the surface, and in some instances, can be life-threatening.

Straight-line Winds: Straight-line wind is wind that comes out of a thunderstorm. If these winds meet or exceed 58 miles per hours then the storm is classified as severe by the National Weather Service. ... A storm with a strong updraft will tend to have a strong downdraft.

Tornado: A violently rotating column of air touching the ground, usually attached to the base of a thunderstorm. Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms. Spawned from powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes can cause fatalities and devastate a neighborhood in seconds. Winds of a tornado may reach 300 miles per hour.

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