A group of about a dozen people received training to become certified members of the National Weather Service’s Skywarn Storm Spotter program, held on Feb. 23 at the Muhlenberg County 911 office in Powderly. Upon registration, these 12 people will join more than 4,000 in the 58-county region surrounding the Paducah office.
The National Weather Service relies on trained weather spotters to give accurate, on-the-ground reporting during severe weather, said training facilitator and lead forecaster Justin Gibbs. The Paducah office is one of 122 across the country, and one of the busiest, he said.
“Accurate and timely reports can save lives,” Gibbs said. These citizen reporters supply the agency with information their radar systems cannot see, and help them determine the threat level of a storm with finer detail. This also allows them to adjust their warnings in areas ahead of the storm.
Local reporting can save nerves and stress of residents in the area as well, Gibbs added. He said after the Dec. 10, 2021 tornado, the service doesn’t want to send unnecessary warnings to people who might still be traumatized by that extreme weather event. “We want to mitigate that heartache,” he said.
Gibbs said they are looking at 256 different pieces of information from the radar, every four-and-a-half minutes, trying to assess the data in real time. But there’s still a lot of ambiguity. The nearest weather balloon is in Nashville, with others in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Lincoln, Illinois.
“So those little differences, one or two degrees in temperature, we have no way to see it. We can kind of guess and models give us approximates, but having that real ground truth is so important,” Gibbs said.
The two-hour class covered a wide variety of weather topics, from determining wind speed, to measuring rainfall, to reporting back to NWS during severe weather. Trained weather spotters learn how to measure the size of hail, and how to spot rotation during a tornado.
A handful of those attending the training were with a local short-wave radio club. This group of amateur radio enthusiasts can be vital during severe weather, able to report to the weather service via their radios when other systems are down.
A few tips Gibbs gave the group can really apply to anyone witnessing a severe weather event. He stressed the importance of steering clear of high water, and how vital it is to take shelter when a warning is issued.
Even if you end up sitting in your basement awhile, it’s better than waiting until the last minute. “If you’re bored for a few minutes, you’re doing it right,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs said the Paducah regional office sees an average of 26 tornadoes each year, with 42% of them occurring in April or May. He said that while the period between Nov. 1 and March 1 is less likely to see tornadoes, he worries more about this timeframe, due to a host of reasons.
The wind shear during the winter is more severe, due to a wider gradient of temperatures from the warm air in the south to the frozen cold of the north. Gusty wind speeds in the spring are around 35 mph, as compared to 65 mph in the winter. This stronger wind can cause more extreme tornadoes, and with the shorter days during the winter months, these storms are more likely to take place in the dark.
The free Skywarn Storm Spotter training session was part of a series offered each year by the service, which covers counties in Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. There are several scheduled throughout the Paducah service area in March. For more information visit their website at www.weather.gov.
An online webinar training will be held on March 30, and registration can be made by visiting https://www.weather.gov/pah/spottertraining
