As Hanahan cleans up, residents ask why no tornado warning

Three days later, the tornado clean-up continues in Hanahan.  Even though there was a severe thunderstorm warning for the area, the national weather service did not issue a tornado warning.  Residents want to know why.  News 2 took that question to the National Weather Service.
 
Hanahan resident Kenneth Hansen spent Tuesday picking-up debris from his yard.  He lives in an area hit hard Saturday by a storm that produced a tornado and straight line wind.  Hansen says, “I have tree damage, some fell on the house.  I didn’t see no warnings at all.  I seen pop up thunder showers, about an hour before, but I didn’t see no warning about no tornados.  I figured they should have had some kind of warning like that.“

News 2 asked the National Weather Service why was there no tornado warning issued for the Hanahan area?  Ron Morales is a warning coordination meteorologist with NWS.  He says they issued nine warnings Saturday night, including two tornado warnings.  He says a severe thunder storm warning was issued for the Hanahan area, which included a warning about straight line winds.  Morales says, “That warning has wording in it that tells you that this is a dangerous situation that winds at least 60 miles per hour and hail are expected with this storm.  In this particular case, it really wasn’t a tornado that did the extensive damage.  It was really what we call straight line wind.“  The tornado formed quickly and Morales says they did not issue a tornado warning because it’s difficult for the radar to detect extremely weak tornadoes, like the EF-0 tornado that ripped through Hanahan.  Morales says, “It doesn’t appear to have been the classic tornado where it comes from a rotation in the clouds itself and descends.  This was a taking of a rotation from the ground taking it stretching it upward.  It’s a very different beast.  Still it’s technically called a tornado, but they’re very different.  They’re much weaker.  I’m not going to say impossible, but almost impossible unless you’re just lucky to see it on the radar, but they’re still tornadoes.  It’s a challenge for us. It really is.“  Morales says there are a couple of ways to trigger a tornado warning: If it’s seen on radar; or if someone reports actually seeing it.

Morales says it’s important for people take all warnings seriously.  He says, “Take everything that comes out seriously.  There’s been a tendancy over the last few years for people to ignore the severe thunderstorm warning.  They only pay attention to tornado warnings.  The severe thunder storm warning is just as important.  You can have winds, storms that are not tornadic, not spinning, but produce straight line winds of a 100 plus miles per hour that’s going to do damage, or potentially cause injury, or even death, so you have to take note of all of these, and take precautionary action.“