You Soon Could Get These ‘Emergency Alerts’ On Your Phone in New York State

We all get app alerts on our smartphones. It's common to see many notifications pop up during the course of the day. However, we also can get emergency alerts, such as an AMBER Alert, which makes everyone take notice no matter what they are doing.

Soon, there will be a new emergency alert that will pop up on your phone from time to time and it will happen when there's severe weather.

According to the National Weather Service, severe thunderstorms that are deemed "destructive," will automatically activate an emergency alert on your smartphone.

What is deemed as "destructive," however?

Thunderstorms that can produce at least 2.75-inch diameter hail and/or 80 mph thunderstorm winds. These conditions can damage cars and windows of homes.

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Here in Western New York, we just had some major thunderstorms roll through Niagara County and cause massive rainfall that damaged homes and flooded roads. We also had a thunderstorm or two last summer that produced hail and huge winds, and we all remember when the tornado ripped through the Hamburg Fairgrounds in 2017.

With this emergency alert, everyone with a smartphone will be notified when severe, "destructive" weather is not far away.

I'm actually surprised we haven't had this yet. It makes a lot of sense, especially nowadays, when many people are busy and on the run of their daily life and don't have time to look at the weather forecast or even social media.

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