What Does Joining SpotterNetwork Get You?

[Kevin R Burgess]

Dan,
I can't dismiss you on your opinion of deleting your account,yet after talking to EAX,they say you do not have too.

 

[John Wetter]

While I quite vigorously disagree with Jeff's assessment of SN somehow withering away (there's no data to support that assessment), I also have to understand I likely have some bias as well in the other direction. SpotterNetwork is still the fastest way to get your data in front of the NWS and others. The data is quality controlled with a review system and spotters whom submit bad reports are removed from the system. As popularity of the system increases, additional review and scrutiny are placed on reports; this is no different then the never-ending "bad chaser" threads that come up all the time.

We moved support for SN over to Stormtrack because frankly many people are already here that use are system and for those that don't, we thought that Stormtrack could also benefit from bringing new people in... A win-win for everyone. Besides, we needs another forum account for a single purpose?

We always welcome feedback and are currently in the process of gearing up for some exciting new things coming in 2020.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I don't chase as much as I use to, but even still to this day I utilize SN when I'm out chasing. Like many have said, it's quick, easy and gets your reports directly to those who will get that information out to the public. Being that it's completely free, there's absolutely no reason to not sign up and use SN while out chasing, or even storm spotting locally in your county.

 

[Sarah B. Wood]

James- I would strongly suggest going to a spotter training session put on by your local NWS office. For someone who is new to spotting, there is a plethora of information to be obtained at these sessions. I'm not sure if the other NWS offices do this, but my local office has an online training class they would like for us to go through before going to the actual training session. It helps to solidify the material presented during the training, and has plenty of photos for cloud identification reasons. The online training is offered through MET ED. It is free to join, and there are also other courses on there that may be of interest.

 

[Christene G]

I was just looking for Skywarn classes last night. Those are the classes for NWS, correct? In my area, it seems that the classes run from about February to May, so I will have to wait until next year. I'm definitely excited to see what SN has.

 

[James K]

@Sarah B. Wood
I definitely do plan to look into a Skywarn class from the local NWS office next year.
I don't remember seeing anything about online training when I saw info about the Skywarn classes this past spring (but I didn't look all that closely since at the time I wasn't sure if I wanted to go for a class. It also didn't seem like they had much info on the website)

@Christene G:
Yep, Skywarn is the NWS classes.
Basically same thing here, they only do the classes in spring. I believe that's pretty standard? (the idea being to get people ready for the upcoming severe weather season)

 

[Sarah B. Wood]

They do have the classes every spring, however our local NWS office is having spotter training in the fall for the first time. Here in Indiana we have a second tornado season of sorts in the fall, so autumn severe weather will be discussed along with winter weather.

 

[James K]

I definitely do plan to look into a Skywarn class from the local NWS office next year.

Ok since it is officially 'next year' from when I posted that...
I was recently looking at the local NWS weather page, and now they have a list of dates/times for Skywarn classes.
And this might be a dumb question? (or maybe something I have to ask them?)
Do I have to choose one in my county(which I don't see one yet)? the town closest to me? Or is it ok to go to one a bit farther if the day its on works better? It is all through the same WFO afterall...

 

[Lou Ruh]

Each office makes their own rules regarding Skywarn training, but, most that I have spoken to are happy to train any candidate that shows up, regardless of residence (although, some do have a minimum age requirement)

 

[rdale]

NWS classes are open to all regardless of where you live. Some private entities might restrict their training, but if it's from the NWS then all are welcome!

 

[Randy Denzer]

I have never joined SN. The main reason is that I really don’t want to see where everybody else is going: I don’t want to have confirmation bias, or second-guess my own target, or avoid a good one just because of the number of chasers heading there, or have yet one more thing to look at and consider while chasing (e.g., what roads might have more or fewer chasers).

I know it’s intended as a reporting tool and the above applications are just byproducts; feel free to admonish me if you think I’m wrong, but I never thought it was that important for me to add myself to the hundreds of “dots” already out there. With all the chasers and spotters, and as a chase vacationer, the chance that I am ever going to be the first one or only one to see and report a tornado is slim to none.

You can hide your dot and still report while on SN

 

[Ethan Schisler]

Most of our local NWS offices don't even take Spotter Network seriously anymore or have it turned off in NWS Chat due to the poor quality of reports. Honestly even some of my own reports which IMO were detailed enough and fit guidelines for reporting I've been issued warnings for not being detailed enough. For example, I got a warning for reporting 2.75" hail this last spring because I estimated it based on the comparison of a baseball and had photos to back it up on twitter. I've also got warnings for estimating tornado distance from myself using a map, which makes no sense at all how that would even matter when again...in real time I had posted photos to twitter and exact lat lon coordinates.

I'm at the point now, I don't even bother to report anything anymore on there. It's a complete waste of time for me. I just contact NWS directly via phone or twitter.

I also leave my icon off anymore as well. I’ve had people follow me based on my icon or track down my location and follow our group. In 2014 I had a group of people from Utah track down my Facebook, look me up on spotter network, and then came up to us in a Wendy’s parking lot in Nebraska and try to follow us (creepy much?). I get people wanting to see weather and experience it, that is cool and all, but following other people without them knowing, is really sketchy. I’d suggest taking a chase tour before anyone does that.

 

[rdale]

As a reminder - SpotterNetwork is still heavily utilized by WFOs, broadcast mets, and EMs. There's no more effective way to hit all aspects at once these days.

If by "warnings" then you mean a bad report - that's pretty rare these days. I think a little exaggeration may be going on with your stories

 

[W R Howell]

Your wrong.
You don't have to be just another dot on the scope.
If you think seeing other dots grouped together may sway you to go somewhere else to that group, then where is your confidence in your decision making? Go where you think, helps you learn.
How many Youtubes have watched where that chaser was the only there? Quite a few have been.
You never know when your report may be the only one that NWS needs to forewarn a town.

May 30, Canton Tx. A DPS vehicle and I were the only around that saw the 3rd tornado touch down maybe 100 yards away from me.
Actually the DPS did not show up till some minutes after.
Everyone else was up on Hwy 80.

You do report more than just tornadoes....

Your wrong.
You don't have to be just another dot on the scope.
If you think seeing other dots grouped together may sway you to go somewhere else to that group, then where is your confidence in your decision making? Go where you think, helps you learn.
How many Youtubes have watched where that chaser was the only there? Quite a few have been.
You never know when your report may be the only one that NWS needs to forewarn a town.

May 30, Canton Tx. A DPS vehicle and I were the only around that saw the 3rd tornado touch down maybe 100 yards away from me.
Actually the DPS did not show up till some minutes after.
Everyone else was up on Hwy 80.

You do report more than just tornadoes....

Contrary to most popular belief you were not the only one that happen to be near where it Touched down in Canton that day, and you were correct in saying that DPS didn't show up for minutes later. Not all of our storm spotters were up on Highway 80. We never move all our spotters to one area....for that reason. You never know what might creep up on you from the rear while spotting what's in front of you... Thanks though for being in our area on that day, communities can never have too many spotters available and our group certainly welcome those willing to come and help.

 

[Randy Jennings]

A few thoughts on this thread. First - you don't have to display dots to make spotter network reports. Second - if you are worried about people following your dot, you don't have to always beacon, you can turn it on just to report then turn it off (although that will prevent NWS Mets from calling and asking you questions which actually happened this year to my chase partner and I).

I listened in on a Skywarn training session last Saturday. Someone asked the MET what he thought of the various reporting methods and what was the best way to report. He said he hated MPING (because it was anonymous and they get way too many bad reports) and he hated Facebook (never gets their in real time). He liked people calling the office (chances are if they have the number they are a trained spotter) and he loved Twitter with pics (he can look at the pic and verify that the report was what it said it was). Interestingly he didn't mention ham radio (which that office has a big ham radio presence) nor SpotterNetwork (which wasn't even on the slides as a way to report). Granted this is just one NWS METs view and other view will vary - but I found it interesting. I do think many offices still use Spotter Network and consider it a reliable form of reporting, but it does suffer from the issue of just because one makes a report in "good" format doesn't mean they know what they are seeing despite being taking a short course and passing a test. It takes time in the field to become good at knowing what you are looking at -as the real world is rarely the prefect examples you see in training. I will say that overtime I think that individual METs get to recognizing names and trusting their reports and as I noted they will even call them if they have time and have specific questions.