WEST ALLIS, Wis. — An EF-0 tornado made its way through West Allis, Wis. on Wednesday, according to a National Weather Service team surveying damage Thursday.
The NWS said peak winds from the tornado were around 75mph. The EF-0 tornado had a path of three miles and lasted for about 10 minutes from S 58th St., between Stack Drive and S 57th St.
Three teams from the National Weather Service were deployed on Thursday after powerful storms made their way through a handful of counties in southeastern Wisconsin on Wednesday.
One of the many places they stopped was West Allis, near 72nd St. and Beloit Rd.
There were a handful of cleanup efforts underway in West Allis on Thursday. The city’s Department of Public Works was cleaning up tree limbs and debris while homeowners were picking up their yards.
“Yeah, it’s an all day thing. If not a two-day thing,” homeowner Sean Stephenson said. “But you know, it is what it is.”
A large tree came crashing down into Stephenson’s backyard, taking down his fence and totaling his truck.
“It was an ‘oh my God’ moment. I was like, wow, this is not great,” Stephenson said.
The damage in his yard is the reason the NWS sent teams out to survey the area. His backyard was the first stop for Tim Halbach, the NWS Warnings Coordination Meteorologist out of Milwaukee.
“It looks like a lot of tree debris,” he said. “Not a lot of structural damage.”
Once the team got a look at the first yard, they began taking pictures to collect data from what they saw. This data will allow them to determine if it was a tornado, its path and its rating.
“With these surveys, we try to find the point and go back and forth on both sides to find out where the path was and how intense,” Halbach said.
Halbach explained that he and the team use signs like which way shingles are blown or how trees have fallen to determine the direction of a likely path.
It takes time, but the work they do helps educate and further explain the science behind Mother Nature.
