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According to Rick Shanklin of the National Weather Service, people tend to trust storm reports corroborated by trained storm spotters on the ground in the communities they serve more than those based purely on radar.
As a result, the NWS sponsors regular training sessions for storm spotters in their regions. Approximately 100 people from several counties — ranging from first responders to city and county employees and private citizens — attended one such class Tuesday at the Robinson Event Center in Perryville.
“We do about 30 classes a year over the 56 counties we cover,” said Shanklin, who works out of the NWS office in Paducah, Ky., whose coverage area includes southeast Missouri. “There’s usually not this many people.”
Shanklin dis say there was a general uptick in attendance in areas where there has been a major weather event in the previous few years. It’s been three years since an EF-4 tornado tore through northern Perry County, leaving a swath of destruction nearly a mile wide from just west of Interstate 55 all the way to the Mississippi River and continuing more than 30 miles into Illinois.
Monday’s training session was part of the SKYWARN Spotter Program, which trains individuals in how to identify severe weather.
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.
All those in attendance received certification as a storm spotter, learning how to identify and report key severe weather features, including tornadoes, storm damage, flash floods, hailstorms and downbursts. report severe weather conditions to the National Weather Service.
“They get access to a different things that the general public doesn’t,” Shanklin said. “Their reports are critical to the warning process. They’re our eyes and ears on the ground.”
Since the program began in the 1970s, information provided by SKYWARN spotters, coupled with Doppler radar technology, improved satellite and other data, has enabled NWS to issue more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash floods. SKYWARN storm spotters form the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather.
Before Monday’s class, Perry County Gary Schaaf addressed the attendees, reminding them of another training session that could prove useful to storm spotters — ham radio.
The Perry County Sheriff’s Office and Perryville Police Department will be hosting a 10-week technician level ham radio course for all interested parties, beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, and continuing each Tuesday for 10 weeks. Each session will last two hours. The final class, set for May 5, will be test night.
Barry Doyle, an Extra Class ham radio operator, will lead the class.
All emergency responders are encouraged to attend, as are any other interested parties, in order to enhance communications within the community in disaster situations.
“The National Weather Service sees the storm from the knees up,” Doyle said. “They can’t see what’s happening at ground level. And that’s where we come in. And that’s where you all come in as storm spotters. You’ll be able to tell them what’s happening from the knees down where all the action is. This is where the tornadoes are, hail and damaging winds, all that. They can infer some of that from the radar, but they need people on the ground.”
Schaaf said that while emergency responders are sponsoring this course, everyone is encouraged to attend.
“It is our hope that the whole community will become involved and establish a network of eyes and ears throughout the area to assist in threat assessment and response,” Schaaf said.
“Besides, when you’re not storm spotting you can have some fun with this newfound skill.”
Applicants can sign up for the class at either the Perryville Police Department or the Perry County Sheriff’s Office.
