The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Tulsa, Oklahoma released its training schedule for the agency’s SkyWarn program.
The SkyWarn program “is a volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters” nationwide. They help to keep their communities safe from severe weather by providing accurate severe weather reports to the National Weather Service.
Accurate severe weather reports are important not just for the National Weather Service, but for tv stations as well. A lot of the local storm reports shown on-air are from trained spotters in the SkyWarn program.
Since there is no education or occupation requirement to become a storm spotter, anyone in any profession can become one. “Volunteers include police and fire personnel, dispatchers, EMS workers, public utility workers, and other concerned citizens” according to the NWS.
In order to become a SkyWarn storm spotter, you will first need to attend a training session hosted by the National Weather Service. Each office decides when to host their training sessions throughout the year. The NWS in Tulsa, Oklahoma will be hosting numerous training sessions through the end of February and all throughout March (full schedule below).
You can register for a training session by visiting NWS Tulsa’s website here: https://www.weather.gov/tsa/spotter_training
Interested in becoming a storm spotter, but can’t make it to one of the training sessions? Don’t worry. Other NWS offices, including the ones in Springfield, MO and Little Rock, AR, will hold other training sessions throughout the year.
