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On hot, muggy days when ominous weather builds with the afternoon, a legion of lakes area residents takes sky watching to the next level.
Maybe they started as youngsters watching clouds or grew to have an appreciation for the power of storms as adults.
“People are always fascinated by the weather and because of that fascination they are interested in being interactive,” said John Luce, a trained lakes area weather spotter with the Skywarn program.
Beyond their own interest in weather phenomenon, Luce said being a spotter attracts people who want to help their communities. And in cases of severe weather, their volunteer efforts help give their neighbors an early warning of a dangerous storm.
The National Weather Service was in Brainerd Wednesday for a training session for Skywarn’s severe weather spotters. Though snow was in the air Wednesday in Brainerd, the importance of weather spotters was exemplified by the severe weather that raged across the southern part of the nation, with deadly and devastating storms claiming at least 248 lives.
Carol Christenson, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, said storm spotters serve a significant role with eyes on the ground to track storms and provide early warning.
“That’s how important spotters are to the National Weather Service,” Christenson said. “Their information helps us with the warning decision and also the information we get from them during the storm helps us make decisions to keep the warning going or not going.”
Christenson said when trained weather spotters provide details it helps make the situation more real to residents who may be in the warning path.
Trained spotters cover a wide spectrum — teenagers to retirees, leather-clad bikers to middle-aged women, HAM radio operators and professional emergency responders to amateur storm chasers. The National Weather Service stresses safety and doesn’t expect people to chase storms for the reports.
For spotters, maybe it’s an adrenaline rush in the face of Mother Nature’s power or a case of weather junkies. Christenson said there often is a common denominator — a personal experience with storms.
“A lot of the people here have been through bad storms because they have stories or they just love to look at clouds,” Christenson said. “Or they want to be part of a community of helping and they know being a Skywarn spotter is a way to help.”
Christenson presided over the Skywarn training session Wednesday in Brainerd. With the dramatic storms and death tolls in the South this spring and violent weather there again Wednesday night, Christenson pulled up real time radar to show storm cells and potential tornado-bearing weather signatures. About 80 people attended the Skywarn training at the Crow Wing County Land Services Building.
Skywarn spotters are required to attend the training once every four years, but some return annually. Video clips, photos and diagrams are used to explain storm systems and show spotters what to look for to determine real threats from simply scary looking clouds.
Combining technology of global positioning, the weather service is capable of directing Ham radio operators to a specific spot. Storm spotters use the National Weather Services website to update snow totals during the winter. Spotters are able to call in reports, use Twitter for updates and email photos of clouds or damage.
Luce said many of the Ham Radio club members participate as Skywarn spotters. The volunteer civic effort is gratifying, he said, as a way to help others.
