Are you interested in the weather? Do you want to learn more about thunderstorms? Do you want to help your community and the National Weather Service? Then you may want to attend a SKYWARN Spotter Training Class.
The effects of severe weather are felt every year by many Americans. To obtain critical weather information, NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS), established SKYWARN with partner organizations. SKYWARN is a volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.
Although SKYWARN spotters provide essential information for all types of weather hazards, the main responsibility of a SKYWARN spotter is to identify and describe severe local storms. In the average year, 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 5,000 floods and more than 1,000 tornadoes occur across the United States. These events threatened lives and property.
SKYWARN storm spotters are part of the ranks of citizens who form the first line of defense against severe weather. There can be no finer reward than to know that their efforts have given communities the precious gift of time–seconds and minutes that can help save lives. Training is free and typically last about 2 hours. You’ll learn:
- Basics of thunderstorm development
- Fundamentals of storm structure
- Identifying potential severe weather features
- Information to report
- How to report information
- Basic severe weather safety
A SKYWARN Spotter training class is being held in Athens County, Ohio on Monday, May 2, 2016. The training will be held at the American Red Cross building located at 100 South May Avenue in Athens, Ohio and will begin at 6:00 PM. The training is free and open to the public, bring a friend.