MACON, Ga. — Here in Central Georgia, we have managed to avoid severe weather for quite some time.
Today, however, the Storm Prediction Center issued a Level 2 out of 5 risk for some of our western counties, and a Level 1 out of 5 risk for the remainder of our counties.
Even though this is a low-end risk, it’s still the first time we’ve had to talk about these categories in a while.
It might be time for a little refresher about what exactly these categories mean in terms of our chances for severe weather.
First, we need to understand what the Storm Prediction Center’s severe risk categories are. It’s a system that categorizes the level of the overall threat of severe weather in a certain area, meaning our 13WMAZ Weather Team gets an idea of how strong weather will be as it moves into our area.
They use five different categories to assess risk, and they issue visual products to show where the different levels are located.
Let's take a look at the risks level-by-level:
The first is a level 1, and simply put, this means is isolated severe thunderstorms are going to be possible. However, they are going to be limited in their strength and duration.
A level 2 is really the same story, but storms could be slightly stronger but still not very long lived and they will be isolated.
When we start to be on the high end of a level 2 or we have a level 3, that’s when our team discusses the possibility of a Weather Impact Alert Day.
A level 3 means more widespread storms that will last a little bit longer and will be a little more intense too.
Levels 4 and 5 are ones that are going to have particularly intense weather with a wider impact.
In a level 4, we would likely see some very widespread severe weather with intense impacts.
A level 5 is the highest level, so we would expect the most intense impacts with the greatest coverage. A level 5 also means there’s a high level of certainty that we would see this type of weather.
Luckily, with our level 1 and 2 risks for the day we are nowhere near the far end of that spectrum.
But hopefully that gives you a little refresher on the risk categories for the next time we find ourselves in one.