Lake County Skywarn Storm Spotters Ready for Action

We hit it big time today. Front page of the the Daily Commercial from Leesburg, Florida. A four column spread  with two pictures and a single column on page two. Also made the newspapers web site with the same story and many more pictures.  Check out the web site article - click HERE...
 
    This is the result of a news conference we had at my home a couple of weeks ago . The reporter had contacted me and asked if I would get a few of my ham friends together so he could interview them about Skywarn. He got my name from all the news releases I had been sending the paper over the last year as Lake County ARES P.I.O.  He and a photographer spent about an hour and a half with us.
 
    We kept waiting and waiting to see if anything would come of this and today we finally saw the results.
 

Thanks to the sponsorship of Lake County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, the Lake Amateur Radio Association and the National Weather Service, sponsors of a Skywarn Spotter training class, Lake County now has 21 new spotters ready to report severe weather events directly to the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida.

Because radar can not always see what is going on in specific neighborhoods at ground level the NWS depends upon trained Skywarn Storm Spotters to help fill in those gaps of weather information.  Spotters are trained how to report such things as tornados, hail, damaging winds, flooding and other information defined by  the National Weather Service. The volunteer Skywarn Spotters are taught what to look for and exactly how to report that information to their regional NWS office.

The Lake County Spotter’s class was held at the Emergency Operations Center in the county administration building on Thursday evening November 4, 2010. Twenty one concerned citizens spent their time learning about weather reporting and at the end of the program they were issued their official Skywarn Spotter card and number.

 The course was presented by two Meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida.  They were Arlena L Moses and Jonathan Guseman.  They were able to boil down a very technical subject and make it easily understood by beginning weather reporting volunteers.

The course was attended by local ham radio operators, public service personnel and members of the general public. All those who attended qualified for their Skywarn Spotter Card and are now ready for action somewhere near you in Lake County.

John T Luebbers  K1AYZ

Lake County ARES P.I.O.
 
     
Skywarn Spotter class was held in the Lake County Emergency Operation Center.   Sean Loughlin, Disaster Assistance Coordinator for Lake County spoke of the close ties between Emergency Management and the NWS.   Strait Hollis, Lake County Amateur Radio Emergency Service Coordinator welcomes the volunteer students.  
       

Rick Butz, Assistant Emergency Coordinator for ARES helped with the plans for the spotter course.

   Arlena Moses,  one of the Meteorologists from the NWS explained the reporting system.