Storms Roll Across Texas

2/6/2020 (Permalink)

KILGORE, Texas (KLTV) - Damage is still being assessed from the Friday night storms that rumbled through East Texas, and among those doing that assessment are members of the National Weather Service out of Shreveport.

The priority is to find out what the specific conditions were that caused the damage.

Evaluating every snapped tree and every foot of damage to homes and property is the time-consuming job of NWS investigators.

“Most important is to have good radar data and see where the circulations are. Go along roads and make a note of where we see the damage and then when you see that from a birds-eye view geo-spatially and it lines up, it becomes much more obvious it’s tornado circulation,” says NWS surveyor Brad Bryant.

In the small community of Williams Valley, they track the storm’s path and look at trees, which can be indicators whether it was straight line or tornado rotation.

“Usually if it’s leaning easterly or northeasterly all in one direction , that’s more a sign of straight-line winds. But leaning against each other, against the direction, that’s more an indicator of a tornado. When you get a weak tornado that’s moving quickly it kind of can look like straight line winds,” Bryant says.

But the effort by homeowners to clean up afterward can create a small problem.