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Become a SKYWARN spotter

A free two-hour class from your NWS office turns 'it looks bad out there' into a report a forecaster can use.

2 min readUpdated 3w1 contributor

SKYWARN is the National Weather Service's volunteer spotter program. It has been running since the early 1970s, and it exists because radar can't see everything: it shows rotation aloft, not whether a funnel has touched the ground; it estimates hail, it doesn't measure it. Spotters are the ground truth. Warnings get issued, extended or cancelled on what trained people report.

Who runs it

Each NWS forecast office runs its own spotter program for the counties it covers. That matters on ChatterBack: SKYWARN is organised by office, not by state. Oklahoma alone has two - Tulsa (TSA) covers the northeast, Norman (OUN) the centre and west - and each has its own training calendar, reporting line and nets. Your state hub shows which office covers you once you've shared a location.

The training

Basic spotter training is free, about two hours, and needs no radio licence. You'll learn:

  • How thunderstorms organise - updraft, downdraft, where rotation forms and where hail falls.
  • What a wall cloud is and how to tell it from scud, a shelf cloud, or rain shafts that only look dramatic.
  • What to report and what not to. The NWS wants tornadoes, funnel clouds, rotating wall clouds, hail (size, not "big"), damaging wind and its evidence, flooding over roads. It does not want "heavy rain" or "lots of lightning".
  • How to stay alive doing it: escape routes, never under an overpass, when to stop looking and get inside.

Classes run in late winter and spring before the season; many offices also offer them online year-round. Find yours on your office's page (weather.gov/<office>/skywarn) - the Your NWS tile on your state hub links straight to it. Some offices issue a spotter number after the class; keep it, you'll use it when you call in.

What a spotter isn't

Not a storm chaser. Spotters mostly report from home, a porch, a known safe spot with a view. Not a first responder. And not an NWS employee - you're a trained volunteer, which is exactly why your report carries weight.

How reports reach the NWS

  • The SKYWARN net. When a watch is issued, a net control station opens a net on a local repeater and relays reports to the office, often with a liaison sitting in the forecast office itself. This is where ham radio earns its keep.
  • The office's spotter line - a phone number given out in training. Not published here on purpose.
  • mPING - an app anyone can use for precipitation type, hail and damage. No training needed.
  • Social media - offices do read tagged reports with photos and a location.

ChatterBack's #xx-wx rooms and /report are for each other - so the people around you know what's happening. They don't reach the weather service. Relay anything that matters on the net, the spotter line or mPING.

Do this today

  1. Find your NWS office on your state hub and book a class.
  2. Note the SKYWARN net for your office from the When it matters panel (if it isn't listed yet, ask the net control and suggest it).
  3. Program a NOAA Weather Radio with your county's SAME code - it's on the same panel.