OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich — A barn roof is laying on the ground after a strong line of thunderstorms rolled through West Michigan Wednesday afternoon bringing heavy rain, strong winds and more.
A neighbor in Tallmadge Township told 13 ON YOUR SIDE those winds caused a horse barn's roof to fly off.
The wind appears to have torn a big section of the roof clean off and tossed it several hundred feet away.
There are no reports of any injuries at this point.
Stay weather aware this afternoon.
A Tornado Watch has been issued across a chunk of West Michigan. Timeframe of the watch is between now and 4 p.m.
Primary threats include the possibility of a couple of tornadoes, scattered damaging wind gusts to 70 mph, and isolated large hail of 1” or greater.
STAY WEATHER AWARE
If a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning is issued, you need to seek shelter from this storm, preferably in a basement. If you do not have a basement, you will want to go into an interior room with no windows, trying to put as many walls between you and the outside as possible.
For your safety, it is important that you have multiple ways to stay weather aware and relieve critical weather information.
There are five direct ways in which you can receive weather alerts. The first is NOAA Weather Radio. We often refer to them as the “smoke detector” for severe weather, because they will automatically sound an alarm in the case of a natural disaster or severe weather.
There is also always your local TV station and radio station. The 13 ON YOUR SIDE Weather Department streams on-air and online during an active storm.
Your smartphones also offer numerous ways to receive critical weather alerts. We have a 13 ON YOUR SIDE Weather App that will allow you to track the storm and receive alerts.
Outdoor sirens are also an option, as they will go off in the threat of immediate danger, but are only meant to be heard outdoors. So, if you are inside this should not be how you receive your severe weather alerts. Outdoor sirens can also be unreliable, difficult for those hard of hearing and go off for other reasons beyond tornadoes.
While all of those methods are great, none of them are foolproof. So we suggest having two ways to receive alerts at all times.
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