How did/are the NWS budget cuts affecting spotters in your area?

[Tim Shriver]

With the budget cuts the NWS is getting, did this affect the number of spotters classes or who does them in your CWA?

In our case our group and one other were asked to do some of the spotter classes for them, which our group did and did well.
Other classes were converted to Webinars (is that really a word?).
We also noted that attendance was down at many if not all the classes.

Tim

 

[Greg Higgins]

There were no changes what-so-ever from FWD NWS. We've even done some specailty outreach training geared towards NCS from activities we identified over the past several seasons.

 

[stephanieschweitzer]

In GRB the NWS has cut the number of spotters training courses to regional and offering an online course. We do have two local guys, who do not work for the NWS, who have been given permission to give the classes, one guy does basic and the other does advanced. There are rumors that there will be no classes held by GRB NWS officials next year. Hope this isn't true as there are a lot of folks around here who attend.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

There are no visible changes for the PAH area in Skywarn however, I noticed they are pushing the online training more this year. Aside from the social gathering you benefit at a real classroom training session, I think the online feature is a great idea to help save money.