Radio Association of Erie - W3GV - Erie, PA

About Skywarn

This Video is from A WJET weather special.

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.

Training Net
The Erie County Amateur Radio Emergency Services, Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, and Skywarn Training Net Meets each Sunday at Sunday night at 9 pm on the W3GV Repeater System (146.610-located in Erie, PA and 146.820 in Waterford, PA). Also the WA3UC Repeater on 146.70 is linked into the system.

ALL REPEATERS REQUIRE A PL TONE OF 186.2 HZ

 Training 

Field Resources

Gary Garnet of NWS Cleveland discussing Supercell Thunderstorms

The annual Erie County Skywarn Training Session are usually held in the spring of each year.  Check this page for the 2009 training date! Registration takes place online.  

Basic Spotters Field Guide (color pdf format)

Advanced Spotter’s Field Guide (color pdf format)

Thunderstorms, Tornadoes and Lightning (pdf format)

Facts About Lightning (pdf format)

Tornadoes…Nature’s Most Violent Storms (pdf format)

Thunderstorms and Lightning (pdf format)

Weather Related Web Sites

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/ - Storm Prediction Center - An entire suite of products relating to severe weather that will tell you where and when severe weather is expected.  Some products are updated several times a day while others are updated “on the fly” as weather develops (The Mesoscale page, for example). Will provide rough “early warning” information three days in advance and detailed same day information.  Minor learning curve required.

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/qpf2.shtml - Hydrological Prediction Center (HPC) Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts  (QPF) - Provides a 5-day forecast by individual day and cumulatively of the amount of precipitation expected. Extremely valuable when extended severe weather events or tropical systems are expected. Also very valuable during rapid spring thaws with rain that could result in winter / spring flooding.  Winter weather information is also available.  Most information is displayed via graphics, so no learning curve here.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/cle/index.php - NWS Cleveland web site.  Suite of products to explore.  Mainly a plain English site with no real learning curve.

 http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/CLE/AFDCLE - This is the “Discussion” page of the NWS Cleveland forecasts.  This is where you can read the backstage comments by the forecasters.  Very useful as they are quite candid about their uncertainties and concerns about upcoming weather events.  Minor to moderate learning curve due to use of weather related abbreviations and technical terms.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/TIR/FFGPA3 - Flash Flood Guidance - Provides a text estimate of the amount of rainfall necessary during given during a given time frame to cause flash flooding.  Very useful when combined with the HPC QPF data.  No learning curve.

http://www.interwarn.com - Software provider of the weather monitoring and radar software I use (StormLab).  You can download trial (14-21 day trial periods) of the products.  If you wish to do so I would recommend downloading a day or two before a major event so that you will have the use of the products during the type of weather where you can really see how it works.  There is a moderate learning curve.  It is also a bit pricey, but it is FAR superior to any free radar imagery you will find on the Internet.   It does rely on Nexrad data, so it will not “see” lake effect snowfall.

 http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/radar/03h.htm - Provides experimental 3-hour forecasts for rainfall and cloud to ground lightening.  Very easy to use.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/scan/scan_svr_03h.htm - Very similar to the product listed above, but also provides a 3-hour estimate for the possibility of severe weather.  Very easy to use.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/ - Mesoscale Analysis.  This site is fairly technical.  There will be a moderate to steep learning curve, but if you take the time to do some research it is a very useful site.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats/threats.gif - US Threat Assessment provides a graphic display of possible severe weather events 3-7 days in advance.  Very easy to use.

http://yourerie.com/content/weather - WJET’s weather page.  VERY useful suite of information here.  Also included is their Pinpoint Doppler.  NWS Nexrad radar usually cannot “see” lake effect snowfall.  This site is an excellent resource for monitoring Lake Effect events.  Very easy to use.

http://www.wicu12.com - If you sign up for WICU’s free “Weather Connection” you can use it to send severe weather event pages or text messages to your pager or cell phone.  There is no charge for the service from WICU, but you may incur cellular charges for the use of this service. Check with your cell phone provider to see if you can receive such messages for free.  The trade off for this service being free is that there can be a short delay at times before you receive the message.  But, it is an EXTREMELY flexible service….One of the best I have seen in that regard.  You can tailor the counties you wish to cover and the individual watches, warnings, and advisories to suit your needs. 

You can also upgrade to a premium pay subscription service through WICU.  It offers radar images with limited storm tracking and has value, but if you are serious about monitoring incoming severe weather and can afford it, StormLab is a much better program.  Very easy to use.

Contacts