Fierce thunderstorms that have battered the Front Range most afternoons for the past week have led to warning sirens and alarms being sounded across the region, leaving some residents wondering whether a twister was touching down or the sky was indeed falling.
It wasn’t the former.
According to Bernie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, there hasn’t been a tornado warning issued in the Denver metro area for more than a month.
That means individual jurisdictions are making the decision to sound the alarm.
“It’s tough to say why they’re pulling the trigger,” Meier said, “but they must be seeing something that’s causing them to react.”
Jennifer Adcock moved to Colorado about a year ago from an area of northern California where tsunami warnings had been a regular occurrence. So when she heard sirens going off in her Aurora neighborhood last weekend, she immediately thought something catastrophic was happening.
“I understand what they are, but for me, they’re kind of like a Chicken Little sort of thing,” Adcock said Tuesday. “I know that they aren’t false alarms, but I always equate them with my life being in danger.”
Aurora fire Capt. Allen Robnett said it’s a common misconception that loud sirens screaming during a big storm signal a tornado.
“They’re weather warnings, and the goal when we use them is to get people to seek information about what’s going on,” he said.
Ideally, he said, that means turning on the television or radio, or going online.
There was a time, Robnett said, when the sounding of the sirens would be followed by a voice saying what was going on.
“But we realized that was having the opposite effect from what we wanted. People would leave their homes and come outside to try and hear them,” he said. “What we want is for them to be inside seeking shelter and information.”
Aurora’s sirens may be turned on for any number of weather conditions, including hail, lightning or severe storms. But they sound only after information from one of the city’s weather watchers — individuals trained to recognize weather patterns — or another credible source, such as the Weather Service or television meteorologists, confirms the danger.
“There could be a number of people calling in saying they think they see something,” Robnett said. “That in and of itself won’t cause us to turn on the alarm, but we will send a weather watcher out to determine if it’s warranted.”
Aurora has 55 weather sirens spread across the city. They look like telephone poles with speakers mounted at the top. However, the array’s configuration means there are times when alarms can be heard in Parker or Centennial or other areas, leaving those residents wondering what’s happening.
“Aurora is so big that there are times when the sirens will go off because of the weather in one part of town, and someone from the opposite side will call in and say, ‘Why are you doing this? It’s beautiful outside,’ ” Robnett said.
“We don’t want people to be mad at us, but the thing about Colorado weather is that five minutes from now, you don’t know where the storm will hit next. And, really, having people call is the exact response we want — there’s something going on, and you need to find out what it is.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
