[WIham] Fw: 2016 Weather Spotter Training Class Information

[Mark Thompson]

  On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 12:58, w9awx at yahoo.com [amateurradiomilwaukee]<amateurradiomilwaukee at yahoogroups.com> wrote:   


With spring hopefully to not too far away, that means the Spring severe weather season isn’t that far away either.  In fact, we could have severe weather any time of the year that conditions are favorable.  February is currently the only month Wisconsin has not seen a confirmed tornado. It is for this reason that in February, we start to plan for our Spring spotter training classes.  As of writing this, there are weather spotter classes scheduled across many counties in Southcentral and Southeast Wisconsin and more being added each week across Wisconsin. 




There are currently around 290,000 storms spotters across the country in the Skywarn program.  Amateur radio operators have typically been a major contributor to the NWS Skywarn program for years, with some of our local amateur radio operators reporting to our local NWS office itself, receiving information from spotter groups all across southern Wisconsin.  Most other NWS offices do the same.  Each year, some amateur radio spotters move away or move out of the hobby so we are always in need of new spotters to make up for the loss of spotters. This is why I am reaching out to you, our amateur radio community to become a storm spotter for your community.




Becoming a spotter is relatively easy.  There are two paths you can take.  The best way is to take a pair of online classes first and then attend an in-person training.  You can also just attend the two hour in-person training if you want, but by taking the online classes first as a new spotter, it will give you some insight into the program, what to report, and generally how to report it.  The in-person training builds on this and includes much more local content which is important to know in order to report events to the local NWS office.  If you are not a new spotter, but have not attended a spotter training class in more than two years, this is a good opportunity to take a refresher class as well.




In addition to the formal classes, there are a variety of other training aids you can use to improve your knowledge of the weather which can make you a safer weather spotter.  You can find a number of different training materials on our website’s Training Material page.




I hope to see you at one of our weather spotter training classes if you are local to our area.  If not, I hope you will take the opportunity to participate in our severe weather nets which will be on the Milwaukee Repeater Club repeater again this year.  If you are out of range of the repeater, check with your local amateur radio club for information on where you would report your severe weather to. 




Link to NWS Skywarn Program: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/skywarn/

Link to online Skywarn training classes:  https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=23

Link to available in-person trainings:  http://www.mke-skywarn.org/schedule.htm

Link to training material’s page:  http://www.mke-skywarn.org/storm_spotters.html

 




Sincerely,




Gregg Schulz, W9AWX

Training Coordinator and Assistant Skywarn Net Coordinator



Milwaukee Area Skywarn Association








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