When a tornado touches down anywhere in the U.S., you can bet the National Weather Service will know about it and is already assembling crews to assess the damage.
Normally, when media outlets are looking for severe weather, there is no definitive way for us to tell whether or a tornado has touched down short of video being recorded of the event.
So, in order for us to confirm a tornado has touched down, the NWS sends out crews to the heavily damaged areas and they do two things, according to 11Alive meteorologists:
1. Get aerials to see if they can find a definitive path of a tornado
2. Get on the ground and check to see which direction the debris has fallen
That may seem simple but assessment crews are searching for specific things.
When they get aerial views in an area that has had storm damage, they will be searching for a clear path that a tornado would have traveled.
As assessors are on the ground level, they will be looking for debris that has been blown around in all sorts of directions.
The damage that Haralson County and South Fulton County sustained after Monday’s gave NWS assessor confirmation that not just two but three tornadoes touched down that night.
Two tornadoes touched down in Haralson County, one EF-0 and another EF-1 and an EF-2 tornado touched down in South Fulton County.
Chief Meteorologist for the NWS, Keith Stellman told 11Alive that the damage in Haralson County was extensive and was a combination of straight line winds and tornado damage. Similar damage as seen in South Fulton.
