Bad Spotter's Report

[Joey Ketcham]

Barely into March and already bad spotter reports being made, saw a report made by Justin S. reporting .75" hail, in the notes he put "This is going off my weather radar and this storm contains half inch size hail south of the .75 inch hail".

 

[Rocky Watson]

Sanko's Report

Unfortantely, I have this person on my facebook, so i message him, Justin what in the world are you doing putting storm reports on Spotter Network from your home computer, I find out he's a 14 year old kid from Pratt Kansas!

Rocky Watson
Mullinville/Greensburg Kansas

 

[Chris Wilburn]

Barely into March and already bad spotter reports being made, saw a report made by Justin S. reporting .75" hail, in the notes he put "This is going off my weather radar and this storm contains half inch size hail south of the .75 inch hail".

The season is now officially here! lol I noticed that report as well. I hope this trend doesn't continue.

 

[Tyler Allison]

With 8000+ members there's bound to be a few problems. He is no longer a member of the SN after an unfruitful exchange of emails about his report.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Tyler, in my opinion, is doing a great job handling this. The advisory committee has also been staying on top of things when it comes to bad reports. I think we've always been pretty open to suggestions, if you have any.

In this case, it appears the kid just got over zealous. I'm disappointed to find out the emails were unfruitful.

 

[D. Hayes]

perhaps time to get a credit card verification like some websites do to verify age.

 

[rdale]

I don't see a problem with under-18 doing this. Many Skywarn spotters started under 18. Being young doesn't mean you're stupid any more than being old. Check the list of spotternet reviews and you'll find plenty of over-18 people getting red flagged too!

 

[Tim Shriver]

At 14 the experience and maturity level is not there to depend on their reports. I would
at least have a limit of 16-18 years of age.

We limit members/spotters in our group to at least 16 and then they have
to have the parents sign off.

Tim

 

[Tim Stoecklein]

I echo Ben's comments, I think they do a great job addressing these issues given the size of the 'beast'. I think folks can sift through the bad reports on their own, and the overall good far outweighs the bad reports.

 

[mikedeason]

The season is now officially here! lol I noticed that report as well. I hope this trend doesn't continue.

No, the season officially begins next weekend when we get the additional hour of heating.

 

[Jason Foster]

The season is now officially here! lol I noticed that report as well. I hope this trend doesn't continue.

I personally think it will, but I don't know if the trend will be strong enough to be a problem. I do agree that Tyler does stay on top of things though, within the SN arena.

No, the season officially begins next weekend when we get the additional hour of heating.

Nice!!!LOL.

I've been going around to get opinions on the Skywarn Program from various sites, might be a good idea to start (or restart) a thread on that specific spotter group since they tend to lead the spotter realm.

 

[rdale]

There are thousands of Skywarn groups - if you're looking for opinions, you'll get a better response if you pick one

 

[Jesse Risley]

While I commend the folks at SN for taking steps to improve the service by implementing the online training module, with the goal of reducing the amount of pernicious, inadequate or otherwise flawed reports that are submitted to the NWS, I don't believe you can ever realistically eliminate the problem altogether.

With more and more people becoming aware of and utilizing the service, this is bound to happen on occasion. I personally believe that the training module has reduced the amount of downright asinine reports that were becoming more frequent until the training module was implemented. However, you're always going to have people who ace a test without walking away with any true, working knowledge of how to apply the material that they were tested over to real scenarios.

 

[mikedeason]

No, the season officially begins next weekend when we get the additional hour of heating.

I think it's best that I point out now, before I get any more PM's, that my above post was dripping with sarcasm (as many of mine do.) I am well aware after many season's here on ST that we do NOT, in fact, gain an extra hour of sunlight this coming weekend.

However, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do exist and Elvis has pictures to prove it.