Do Storm Spotters Enhance Severe Weather Safety?

(TNS) – The National Weather Service Gaylord Office is hosting a training for volunteer severe weather spotters in an effort to better protect people and property during hazardous weather events like thunderstorms and tornadoes.

In most years, thunderstorms, tornadoes and lightning cause hundreds of injuries and deaths and billions in property and crop damages, the National Weather Service Skywarn Storm Spotter Program description states.

“These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service,” the program description reads in part.

Manistee’s free spotter training starts at 6 p.m. on May 8 at the Manistee County Emergency Management office, located at 1525 E. Parkdale Ave. The class is estimated to last about 1.5 hours.

The Manistee training is expected to focus on the basics of thunderstorms, cloud formations, identifying types of hazardous weather, tornado formations, how to stay safe in inclement weather and how to provide effective spotter reports.

A spotter’s role

Pat Bak, National Weather Service Gaylord warning coordination meteorologist, said because of observation gaps, spotters are needed to bring first-hand accounts of what they are seeing. And the training guides them on how to do that in a uniform way that the National Weather Service can rely on.

The National Weather Service Gaylord Office covers the northern Lower Peninsula — including Manistee County — and part of the eastern Upper Peninsula.

“We have the technology here (in Gaylord), we have computer equipment, we have our Dopplar radar and all that, but spotters are giving ground truth. They’re telling us what’s happening on the ground,” he said. “By doing that, studies have shown that people respond better to warnings when they’re accompanied with a spotter report.”

Bak said while someone might read that the National Weather Service’s Dopplar has detected a thunderstorm, they may be tempted to go look at it as opposed to seek shelter.

Some spotters also contribute snowfall amounts and fog reports in addition to severe weather information.

“During the wintertime up here most winters we get quite a bit of snow and a lot of our snow especially in the northwest Michigan, a lot of it’s Lake Effect, so there’s quite a bit of variability from place to place. So, snow reports are useful,” he added. “If we get heavy rain, even if you have dense fog, anything that’s potentially impactful, we appreciate those reports as well.”

Bak said Manistee County is one of the locations that typically has spotter trainings each spring.

County emergency management coordinators and the National Weather Service have similar goals, Bak said.

“They’re a very important partner for the Weather Service because our Weather Service mission is to protecting lives and property from hazardous weather and water events and so emergency managers, they’re all about being prepared and protecting their local residents as (much) as they can,” he said. “So we work together on the weather side of things.”

He said Manistee County’s emergency management coordinator Alvin Rischel helped to schedule the county’s training this year.

The spotter trainings are offered nationwide and started in the 1970s. The program’s description calls the storm spotters “the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather.”

When asked about who spotters tend to be, Bak said most have an interest in weather or are first responders like firefighters.

“Generally it’s people with an interest in weather that want to help their community,” he explained.

Bak has previously worked with places like Illinois where counties prefer firefighters or other first responders get spotter training.

“So we have a mix, some are fire, some are other public safety, it’s just anybody with an interest in weather that wants to just learn about severe weather and would want to help their community by making reports of stuff that’s happening in their area,” he said.

Bak said there isn’t a definitive record of how many spotters are in the state or Manistee County since some who go through the training are not necessarily active spotters.

There are between 350,000 and 400,000 trained Skywarn severe weather spotters in the nation, according to the National Weather Service website.

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