The National Weather Service has upgraded Sunday’s EF-zero tornado in eastern Racine County to an EF-1, with winds up to 110-miles an hour, based on a survey of the damage, including several downed trees. Rusty Kapela, at the Sullivan office, says winds just a few miles an hour faster can make a big difference.”Wind power is incredible. We all know that; just hold your hand out your car window. When you’re going seventy miles an hour and you’ll see how strong the air is.”
This thunderstorm developed by itself with no surrounding storms and there wasn’t enough on radar initially to issue a tornado warning until after it touched down, according to Kapela, who says they see often see storms with better rotation signatures on radar that the Sunday’s twister. He says if they issued a warning for every “weak” rotation, hundreds of warnings would go out a year.
The NWS meteorologist says this type of storm is a good reason to keep an eye out, “Pay attention to the sky if you don’t feel safe, head for the basement.”
Storm damage included doors blown in at the Sturtevant Public Safety Building, a pair of semi trailers overturned and power loss for about 2,600 customers of WE Energies.
Janet Hoff-WRJN