ALTO, Texas — The severe weather expected to impact East Texas Friday has been in the forecast for the last several days.
Similarly, the storms that produced the Alto tornadoes were forecasted well ahead of time, yet some people were still caught off-guard by the tornadoes that tore through the small East Texas town.
CBS 19 Meteorologist Michael Behrens says while April 2019’s severe weather was forecasted to hit the Alto area far ahead of time, it is much harder to predict if, when, and where a tornado will spawn.
“The first storm that came out was at 11:10 a.m. the morning of the Alto tornadoes," Behrens said. "It moved up maybe 25 miles and added 19 minutes and now we're producing a tornado."
About 20 minutes passed between the initial tornado warning that morning in Alto and the touchdown of the tornado.
Behrens says this is an example why East Texans must stay weather aware at all times and be quick to react to tornado warnings.
“The best way to keep ahead of the storms, obviously, we're going to recommend the CBS19 mobile app. It's on the App Store. It's on Google Play. You install that to your phone, and then you can set up your location," Behrens said. "So anytime it has your GPS location, anytime an alert comes out for you, it will send you that alert if you set up the weather alerts. But also, we have local systems like Code Red, like Raid. Get on those."
If you only have a radio available, CBS 19's radio partners will also be providing updated coverage on The Ranch, Kicks FM and Jack FM.
As for this weekend’s upcoming severe weather, Behrens says there are no sure things so people should be ready for anything.
“It's always hard to say for certain whether or not storms are going to produce a tornado. So we speak a lot in terms of likelihood when it comes to severe weather and we're certainly going to see some tomorrow enhanced risk that three out of five covers most all of these Texas,” Behrens said.
