|
SKYWARN is
a concept developed in the early 1970s
that was intended to promote a
cooperative effort between the National
Weather Service and communities. The
emphasis of the effort is often focused
on the storm spotter, an individual who
takes a position near their community
and reports wind gusts, hail size,
rainfall, and cloud formations that
could signal a developing tornado.
Another part of SKYWARN is the receipt
and effective distribution of National
Weather Service information.
The
organization of spotters and the
distribution of warning information may
lies with the National Weather Service
or with an emergency management agency
within the community. This agency could
be a police or fire department, or often
is an emergency management/service group
(what people might still think of as
civil defense groups). This varies
across the country however, with local
national weather service offices taking
the lead in some locations, while
emergency management takes the lead in
other areas.
SKYWARN is
not a club or organization, however, in
some areas where Emergency Management
programs do not perform the function,
people have organized SKYWARN groups
that work independent of a parent
government agency and feed valuable
information to the National Weather
Service. While this provides the radar
meteorologist with much needed input,
the circuit is not complete if the
information does not reach those who can
activate sirens or local broadcast
systems.
SKYWARN
spotters are not by definition "Storm
Chasers". While their functions and
methods are similar, the spotter stays
close to home and usually has ties to a
local agency. Storm chasers often cover
hundreds of miles a day. The term Storm
Chaser covers a wide variety of people.
Some are meteorologists doing specific
research or are gathering basic
information (like video) for training
and comparison to radar data. Others
chase storms to provide live information
for the media, and others simply do it
for the thrill.
Storm
Spotting and Storm Chasing is dangerous
and should not be done without proper
training, experience and equipment.
The
National Weather Service conducts
spotter training classes across the
United States, and your local National
Weather Service office should be
consulted as to when the next class will
be held.
|
