Philip D. Brown

Richmond County Daily Journal

Do you watch the Weather Channel religiously or have a keen interest in the weather outdoors — particularly when it’s ugly?

The National Weather Service (NWS) may just have a task to help you indulge these inclinations, while providing a needed public service.

A class is being held from 7 to 9:30 p.m. June 3 at the Laurel Hill Community Center to train residents of Richmond and Scotland counties in the basics of diagnosing severe weather phenomena.

The Skywarn Basic Weather Spotter training classes are sponsored by the NWC, and free to attend.

“This is really for anybody who is interested in weather,” Richmond County Emergency Management Director Frank McKay said. “In the past, there have been about 30 to 45 people who’ve attended it.”

Skywarn is a concept developed in the early 1970s that was intended to promote a cooperative effort between the National Weather Service and communities, according to its national website.

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.

Basically, being a weather spotter means “being the eyes and ears of the NWS,” according to Meteorologist Brandon Locklear.

“We have certain limitations with our satellite equipment,” Locklear said. “They can’t see every snowflake, every gust of wind or every piece of hale. So, it’s important to have trained people to be able to go out and look at cloud signatures to tell us what is going on.”

“In the environment today, there are so many tools available to predict weather it’s mind-boggling,” McKay said. “Yet, it’s still important to have someone on the ground to report what’s going on. The radars we have today are wonderful, but they’re not as nice as having a person there.”

Locklear said the information spotters relay to the NWS is used to help make a decision on what the public is advised to do under the threat of severe weather.

“Being a spotter is all about being able to go out and look at cloud signatures and storm structures and tell whether it will result in severe weather,” he said. “When we have a trained person that tells us this is what’s going on, our confidence level soars, and we are better prepared to get the word out to the general public through advisories and warnings. Instead of sitting on the fence trying to decide if we should do it or not, we can go ahead and get the warning out.”

However, a weather spotter and a storm chaser are not the same thing, as is noted on Skywarn’s website.

“Skywarn spotters are not by definition ‘Storm Chasers,’” the page reads. “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.

“Storm Spotting and Storm Chasing is dangerous and should not be done without proper training, experience and equipment.”

Locklear explained some storm patterns are difficult to distinguish, requiring this type of training to obtain a credible opinion.

“The crazy thing about storms is that when you are in the weather, you see some crazy things,” he said. “Some things that can be easily misinterpreted. For example, sometimes when you see low-lying clouds they can look like a tornado formation.

Locklear said the overall focus of this program is to train a class of citizens that can be there when the storm moves over their house or through their neighborhood and report what is happening to the NWS.

There is another level of the training, Locklear said.

“We also have the advanced level, that really goes more into understanding the meteorology aspects of it,” he said. “For instance, we look at climatology and how we use certain days to diagnose if there will be a high chance for a storm or severe weather phenomenon.”

It is not for everyone, though, he cautioned.

“These classes are really for people who are just crazy, crazy weather nuts,” he said. “They really seem to enjoy it.”

Locklear said the classes are offered after there are a sufficient number of trained spotters and interest in taking the advanced level in a particular geographic region.

For more information about the June 3 basic class, please contact Richmond County Emergency Management Director Frank McKay at (910) 997-8238.

If you’re going:

The Laurel Hill Community Center is located