Michigan Severe Weather Awareness
The Michigan Commitee for Severe Weather Awareness has prepared a great website for severe weather in Michigan.
http://mcswa.com/default.aspx
School Section Lake Weather Station
Ham Radio operator, Bill Westphal, KC8UBX has his weather station on line.
Click Here to view it.
UPDATED Spotter Information!
The National Weather Service has changed a couple of things for this severe weather season. First, severe criteria for hail is now 1 inch or quarter size and larger. This is a change from 3/4 or penny size. This is a regional change at this point, but will be adopted nation wide this year.
ESPOTTER is NO LONGER SUPPORTED by the National Weather Service. Please use the new spotter report form at http://weather.gov/grr/spotter to submit online reports. Also remember, you can always call 1-800-647-3836 to submit a report. Remember, the NWS needs 2 of 3 things to align to issue a warning, radar data, conditions, and reports from spotters.
The National Weather Service will be issuing Significant Weather Alerts this year. These are alerts for not severe weather, but weather that can cause people problems, like intense lightning. We may activate nets for these events depending on conditions.
Can you do it better?
Try your hand as a Warning Coordination Meteorologist! How do you think you could do?
Sit in the HOT SEAT!
Newaygo County Skywarn
Newaygo County SkyWarn is conducted on the 146.920 repeater with a negative (-) offset and a PL of 94.8. The White Cloud 145.450 repeater is a backup in the event the 92 repeater fails.
SkyWarn nets are activated when the National Weather Service issues a severe thunderstorm warning, tornado warning or tornado watch. Anybody can check in, but please when submitting reports state if you are a National Weather Service trained weather spotter. We accept all reports regardless of training.
If you can not hear a net or contact anyone on the repeater, please submit your report directly to the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids by calling 1-800-647-3836 when it is safe to do so.
What is Skywarn
SKYWARN is a concept developed in the early 1970s that was intended to promote a cooperative effort between the National Weather Service and communities. 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. Another part of SKYWARN is the receipt and effective distribution of National Weather Service information.
SKYWARN spotters are not by definition "Storm Chasers". 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.
The National Weather Service conducts spotter training classes across the United States, and your local National Weather Service office should be consulted as to when the next class will be held. The Grand Rapids office SKYWARN training schedule can be found here.