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The Perry County Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service of Paducah will host a special training session as part of the SKYWARN Spotter Program.
The event will be held from 6-8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 24, at the Robinson Event Center, located at 2411 Walters Lane in Perryville.
The free event is open to those interested in educating themselves on how to identify severe weather. Those interested in participating must pre-register onine at https://www.weather.gov/pah/spottertraining.
All materials necessary for the class will be provided, and participants will receive a certificate at the completion of the training.
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.
The objective of the training is to provide the knowledge necessary to identify and report key severe weather features.
The class will contain photos and videos of recent violent tornadoes, storm damage, flash floods, hailstorms and downbursts.
Participants can expect to 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.
Since the program started in the 1970s, the 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.
For more information about the training session, contact the Perry County EMA at 573-547-4000.
