Three new weather warning sirens now will serve White River Township neighborhoods in Bargersville Community Fire Department’s response area.
White River Township Trustee Jay Marks purchased the sirens for neighborhoods south of Stones Crossing Road. The equipment cost was $48,000.
Marks said the area was in dire need of a severe weather warning system. The northern half of White River Township had some warning devices, he said.
Bargersville Community Fire Department provided space to install one of the new sirens at its Station 2, 5886 Smokey Row Road. Another of the sirens was placed on a tall pole on Smokey Row Road, about a half-mile east of County Road 400 West.
A warning siren was operational at an elementary school on Whiteland Road, west of Ind. 135.
An antiquated siren at Bargersville Community Fire Department Station 1, 89 S. Baldwin St., Bargersville, was not loud enough to warn all the town’s residents.
 
Bargersville’s town officials allowed one of the new warning devices to be erected at its waste water treatment plant.
Johnson County’s Emergency Management Director Tug Sutton supports warning devices throughout the county. However, funding and maintenance costs are difficult to find in county budgets.
With the most frequent month for severe thunderstorms coming in May, the new warning system is welcomed.
Following is information about tornadoes maintained by Sutton.
Tornado Climatology  
Because  a  tornado  is  part  of  a  severe  thunderstorm,  and  thunderstorms  occur  all  over  the  Earth,  tornadoes  are  not  limited  to  any  specific  geographic  location.  In  fact,  tornadoes  have  been  documented  in  every  one  of  the  United  States,  and  on  every  continent,  with  the  exception  of  Antarctica  (even  there,  a  tornado  occurrence  is  not  impossible).  In  terms  of  absolute  tornado  counts,  the  United  States  leads  the  list,  with  an  average  of  over  1,000  tornadoes  recorded  each  year.  A distant second is Canada, about 100 per year.  
 
Tornado Alley 
 
In  the  United  States,  there  are  two  regions  that  get  proportionately  more  tornadoes  than  anywhere  else.   
Florida is one and Tornado Alley, northeast from Texas, is the other.  Florida  has  a  lot  of  tornadoes  simply  because  it  is  home  to  almost  daily  thunderstorms.  In  addition,  the  Florida  peninsula  is  also  impacted  by  tropical  cyclones  and  when  these  cyclones  move  ashore,  the  embedded  thunderstorms  will  often  produce  tornadoes.  However,  despite  the  violent  nature  of  a  tropical  cyclone,  most  of  the  tornadoes  they  spawn (some being water spouts) are normally relatively weak.




 
Tornado Climatology
(Continued)
.Strong to violent tornadoes (those of F3 or stronger on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Damage Intensity Scale), are relatively rare, and are not usually experienced outside of the central United States. Although its boundaries are debatable (depending on which criteria you use -frequency, intensity, per unit area), the area from central Texas, northward to northern Iowa and from central Kansas and Nebraska east to western Ohio is collectively known as Tornado Alley. Climatologically, Tornado Alley is ideally positioned for the formation of super-cell thunderstorms, and therefore is also home to many violent tornadoes. Overall, for the U.S., most tornadoes (around 83%) are considered weak (F0), and around 98% of all U.S. tornadoes are below F3 intensity. That leaves just about 2% of all U.S. tornadoes to be categorized as violent (F3 and above). Of these violent twisters, thankfully just around 0.4% achieves F5 status, with winds over 261 mph and nearly complete destruction. However, given that on average over 1000 tornadoes hit the U.S. each year, which means that 20 can be expected to be violent and around 4 might be incredible. Fortunately, recent years have not seen as many F4 and F5 tornadoes as those probabilities would indicate.




 
Tornado Climatology
(Continued)
.Daily and Seasonal Peak Occurrences
Because most tornadoes are related to the strength of a thunderstorm, and thunderstorms normally gain most of their energy from solar heating and latent heat released by the condensation of water vapor, it is not surprising that most tornadoes occur in the afternoon and evening hours, with a minimum frequency around dawn (when temperatures are lowest and radiation deficits are highest). Since tornadoes occur throughout the year and at any time somewhere in the U.S., there really is no national tornado season (as there is with Atlantic hurricanes). Regionally, however, the frequency of tornadoes in the United States is closely tied with the progression of the warm season. Most of the early spring tornadoes in the U.S. tend to occur in the lower latitudes of the Southeast and south Central regions. Gulf States, such as Mississippi and Louisiana, are the frequent recipients of tornadoes from February to April. Late spring tornadoes migrate a bit farther north, often into Kansas, Nebraska and the Tennessee Valley region. By mid-summer, Tornado Alley is active and tornadoes may occur throughout the U.S. Late summer tends to bring some of the stronger tornadoes into the upper Midwest and Ohio Valleys, and the pattern shifts back southward into late autumn. The fewest tornadoes are documented during the winter months. (Excerpt from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html)