TALLAHASSEE, Fl. (WTXL) -- Every Tuesday on WTXL Sunrise, you'll be able to have one of your own weather questions answered by Meteorologist Alex Cordero.
This week, our question was emailed by Chris Floyd, with Disaster Resistant Communities Group LLC, from Tallahassee, Florida.
His question: "What is the SWEAT Index?"
The SWEAT index is short for Severe Weather ThrEAT Index. And it simply calculates the potential for severe weather.
Meteorologists often look at heating, moisture, wind shear, and other variables to help us forecast, and in this case there is an equation that helps compute the index for us.
To make it simple, the equation uses terms that represent low level moisture, instability, wind speeds and wind shear.
The larger the sum of the values, the higher the likelihood for severe weather, and in cases, the higher chance to see a tornado.
Like all parts of forecasting, there is more than just one index, so forecasters focus on a variety of different ones.
To see the equation for the SWEAT index, click here.
