Skywarn at NWS Wakefield VA office

[DavidThomas]

Well, I have registered for both the basic and advanced classes on December 12 and 13. Does anyone have advice on what I need to study or brush up on before the classes start?

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[Bill Giles]

In my experience, you aren't really tested or anything when you do Skywarn training. You go to the class(s) and you get certified. But if you want to go over some of the material in advance, I recommend:

This YouTube video of a Skywarn class (it's from a class in Ft. Collins CO back in 2011, but still will cover a lot of the same info)

Also, here's a YouTube playlist from the NWS office in Norman covering Advanced Spotter Training

Finally, here's the Weather Spotter's Field Guide, from the NWS. The date on it also says 2011, but I didn't see a newer version online.

My Skywarn training class was in Centennial CO, and while they covered the basics they also went into more detail regarding local weather phenomena which I found pretty interesting and helpful. That first video I linked may go into that for Colorado; it's been awhile since I watched the whole thing. You might get some of that in your training for your area.

Additionally, the guys who did my Skywarn training were also involved with ARES and amateur radio. You might look into that as well if you're at all interested in HAM radio communications for chasing.

I have more information and links (as I'm sure everyone here does) if you want to dig more into chasing. For me, spotter training was a good place to start but there is so much more to learn if you want to progress into chasing.

 

[DavidThomas]

In my experience, you aren't really tested or anything when you do Skywarn training. You go to the class(s) and you get certified. But if you want to go over some of the material in advance, I recommend:

This YouTube video of a Skywarn class (it's from a class in Ft. Collins CO back in 2011, but still will cover a lot of the same info)

Also, here's a YouTube playlist from the NWS office in Norman covering Advanced Spotter Training

Finally, here's the Weather Spotter's Field Guide, from the NWS. The date on it also says 2011, but I didn't see a newer version online.

My Skywarn training class was in Centennial CO, and while they covered the basics they also went into more detail regarding local weather phenomena which I found pretty interesting and helpful. That first video I linked may go into that for Colorado; it's been awhile since I watched the whole thing. You might get some of that in your training for your area.

Additionally, the guys who did my Skywarn training were also involved with ARES and amateur radio. You might look into that as well if you're at all interested in HAM radio communications for chasing.

I have more information and links (as I'm sure everyone here does) if you want to dig more into chasing. For me, spotter training was a good place to start but there is so much more to learn if you want to progress into chasing.

Thanks Bill. I am seeing that alot of people have different experience levels in this. However, I would be bringing nothing new to the table. I would be basing what I think a tornado would do on my rudimentary knowledge and some common sense. For example, in my mind, the direction that the very top of the funnel is going in, if it is a cone shaped tornado, would indicate the general direction that the entire tornado would go in. I understand that this may not always be the case, even with cone shaped tornadoes, but it would be even less so with wedge tornadoes because they are too big and wide to use that type of rudimentary direction assessment.

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[DavidThomas]

Would I be correct in saying what I just said about how to determine the heading of some types of tornadoes?

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[DavidThomas]

Also, I don't know what type of local severe weather phenomena you have, Bill, but here in Eastern NC, Bertie County in particular, we have more of a chance for strong straight line winds and bow echoes, which kind of go hand in hand with each other, if I'm not mistaken.

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[Bill Giles]

I'd think that a tornado would ultimately follow the direction/velocity of its parent storm, but even just from watching videos I can see that it's not always that cut and dry. As far as just looking at the top of a funnel, I pretty sure that it wouldn't be a sure fire method of gauging a tornado's track. It might not even be an option, as depending on the storm your visibility of the whole tornado could be obscured by precipitation.

It's not something I've really thought about though, so I'm going to defer to someone with more experience (which probably includes most everyone here).

I'd think that using a stationary object, such as a telephone pole, (which I know I can easily find since all of my pictures inevitably have one in it) to determine the tornado's forward direction would be my best bet, if I didn't have the luxury of radar at that time.

 

[DavidThomas]

Ok. Thanks. All of the technical stuff is kinda new to me, but i see that some of basics of severe weather are kind of similar to other applications of physics. For example, during the entire life of a severe thunderstorm, there are many conversions of one type of energy to another, like the common conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy. At this point, I am just trying to use knowledge that I already have to help myself understand the things that I need to in regards to severe weather.

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[Robert Forry]

David, this may be a little over the top for you at this point, but also a great place to start is taking some of the courses on the MetEd site. Granted, some are a little more advanced, but you can take the basics on Skywarn there too. I believe you'll need to anyway if you plan on submitting reports via SpotterNetwork. MetEd is here: https://www.meted.ucar.edu/ Sign up and get a username and password, then chose Education and Training, then from the drop down menu on All Topic Areas chose Convective Weather. From there you have your choice from everything from Basic Skywarn Training to more advanced topics like Principle of Convection. Lastly, as you progress in your learning, be sure to check out the @Rich Thompson series on Tornado Forecasting on YouTube. Good luck!!

 

[DavidThomas]

Thanks, Robert. I also kind of want to go to NC State University and take their meteorology degree program.

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