At 7:38pm this evening, the Chicago office of the National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Lee and DeKalb County. After assessing the situation using 13Skywatch Doppler Radar, I couldn't find anything that would warrant its issuance. Furthermore, I looked at our lightning detector. The nearest lightning strikes were nearly 1,000 miles away over Northeast Texas.
We took several calls from people wondering if we were going to cover the "severe" weather. The NWS issued several information statements saying that the public had estimated the wind south of DeKalb at 65mph and several tree branches were downed. Because the wind was estimated by a non-trained storm spotter, it cannot be proven that this was a severe thunderstorm...or even a severe rainstorm (since there was no thunder).
13WREX has a commitment to covering severe weather. You can count on us to be Rockford's severe weather leader. We will be on the air the instant the information warrants, but when gusty showers cause tree branches to come down, we'll stay off of the air and let you enjoy WREX's programming.
If you have any questions or comments, click on the link below or send me an E-Mail at esorensen@wrex.com. Most of all? Thanks for counting on us to bring you the most accurate weather information when it is needed.
Eric Sorensen
Chief Meteorologist
WREX-TV
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1 comment:
I live in DeKalb and that was NOT a Severe Thunderstorm...it got really windy for about 5 minutes...then rained briefly. Not a big deal!
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