Continuing with this week's theme of Severe Weather Awareness Week in Iowa, today's topic is preparedness. The main product that the National Weather Service (NWS) issues to help with preparedness for organized severe weather is the Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Watch. These watches are issued by the Storm Prediction Center (a part of the NWS) and usually provide enough lead time to allow for planning to be considered in case severe weather becomes more immediate and necessities a warning. The featured chart presents the number of watches that touch Iowa for the current year to date period each year along with the percentage of the overall country wide total. The full year percentage is close around 10% or one in ten watches issued touch part of Iowa. Last week we had the first watch of the year.

Voting:
Good = 9
Bad = 0