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About Storm Spotting
A storm spotter is 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.
The primary group responsible for organizing storm spotters in the USA is known as SKYWARN®.

SKYWARN is a concept developed in the late 1960s that was intended to promote a cooperative effort between the National Weather Service and communities. Along with spotting, 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 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 a volunteer program with nearly 290,000 trained severe weather spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.

Although SKYWARN® spotters provide essential information for all types of weather hazards, the main responsibility of a SKYWARN® spotter is to identify and describe severe local storms. In the average year, 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 5,000 floods and more than 1,000 tornadoes occur across the United States. These events threatened lives and property.

Since the program started in the 1970s, the information provided by SKYWARN® spotters, coupled with Doppler radar technology, improved satellite and other data, has enabled NWS to issue more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash floods.

Today, amateur radio plays a key role as most spotters opt to attain their radio licenses, however cell phones are an ever increasingly popular means to directly relay information along with other on-line spotter reporting protocols such as The Spotter Network.

SKYWARN® storm spotters are part of the ranks of citizens who form the Nation's first line of defense against severe weather. There can be no finer reward than to know that their efforts have given communities the precious gift of time--seconds and minutes that can help save lives.

Other spotters groups have formed in various countries. Canwarn is the Canadian spotter program run by Environment Canada and similarly the Australian Bureau of Meteorology runs the ASP (Australian Storm Spotters) program in Australia. In the United Kingdom, the TORRO operates a network of observers.


I want to be a storm spotter! How do I get started doing that?
In order to become a storm spotter, you need to learn when and where the official Skywarn training takes place. It certainly depends on your location. The National Weather Service has 122 local Weather Forecast Offices, each with a Warning Coordination Meteorologist, who is responsible for administering the SKYWARN® program in their local area. Training is conducted at these local offices and covers:

  • Basics of thunderstorm development
  • Fundamentals of storm structure
  • Identifying potential severe weather features
  • Information to report
  • How to report information
  • Basic severe weather safety

Classes are free and typically are about two hours long. To find out when a SKYWARN® class will be conducted in local your area, contact your local Warning Coordination Meteorologist at: http://www.stormready.noaa.gov/contact.htm

Who is Eligible?
The National Weather Service encourages anyone with an interest in public service and access to communication, such HAM radio, to join the SKYWARN® program. Volunteers include police and fire personnel, dispatchers, EMS workers, public utility workers and other concerned private citizens. Individuals affiliated with hospitals, schools, churches, nursing homes or who have a responsibility for protecting others are also encouraged to become a spotter.

Spotter Training Guides
Click to download the desired spotter guide. (guides are in .PDF format)
* Storm Spotting and Storm Chasing is dangerous and should not be done without proper training, experience and equipment.