ALLEGAN COUNTY (WKZO-AM) — After days of great weather, west Michigan got a taste of the darker side of the spring last night, as rain, lightning and hail rolled through the region.
Homeowners in Fennville reported hail as big as golf balls. They are currently assessing post-storm damage.
Most of the hail that fell was pea-sized, but in some areas it fell in quantities sufficient enough that piles began to develop.
This storm wasn’t that damaging, but Kalamazoo County Sheriff Rick Fuller said they have several systems in place to spot and track more dangerous storms and tornadoes. The National Weather Service has radar first responders can access, too.
Kalamazoo County still works with volunteer spotters on the ground and a program called “Rolling Thunder” is handled by dispatchers — a dispatcher in a county that experiences stormy weather will call dispatchers in the next county over to let them know what’s coming.
Fuller said they have also fined-tuned the siren system to issue warnings on a township level rather than a county level. He said alarming an entire county when only a portion of it is impacted can cut into the credibility of the system over time, causing people to ignore the sirens.
