Severe damage can occur due to a variety of weather elements including straight line wind, hail, flash flooding, hail, tropical storm/hurricane wind and tornadoes. The common threshold for these severe weather elements are below: Straight line wind: 58 miles per hour or greater Hail: 1 inch diameter or greater Flash flooding: varies with location, threat increases as the rain rate per hour increases Tropical Storm: 39 to 73 miles per hour Hurricane: 74 miles per hour or greater Tornadoes: Wind speed of at least 65 miles per hour from a tornadic circulation There are other factors when combined with these thresholds that can cause the damage to be more severe. Examples are given for each: Straight line wind: A longer lasting severe wind speed can produce more damage, wind higher above the threshold can produce more damage (100 mph wind) Hail: Hail accompanied by strong winds can increase the damage done by the hail since it can increase hail velocity as it strikes the surface, hail can be much larger than 1 inch diameter Flash flooding: Flooding can be enhanced by poor drainage, saturated soil, impermeable soil, higher rain rate, heavy rain over a larger area, a longer duration rain, a funneling of water into a narrow region Tropical storm: A longer lasting wind can produce more damage, a strong wind with varying directions can produce more damage Hurricane: A longer lasting wind can produce more damage, a strong wind with varying directions can produce more damage, as the wind speed increases above the 74 mph threshold then damage can increase Tornadoes: A longer lasting tornado, damage can increase as wind speed increases above 65 mile per hour threshold, a slower moving tornado can produce more damage for location impacted |