National Weather Service
Severe Weather SKYWARN Spotter
Training Course

Tuesday May 8, 2012
6:30pm - 8:30pm

Search and Rescue Building
710 Rosita Avenue
Westcliffe, Colorado

The National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colorado will be conducting Severe Weather Awareness & SKYWARN Spotter Training Session in Westcliffe in Custer County on Tuesday, May 8th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Search and Rescue Building, 710 Rosita Avenue.

The session will consist of two parts.  The session will describe how the Weather Spotter is involved in the “warning decision process”, and will discuss severe weather procedures and identification.  Still photos and interesting video will be shown in the severe weather identification section of the session, including the 2007 tornado in Custer County.

Weather Spotters are volunteers who report severe weather conditions, such as large hail, damaging winds, tornados, etc. directly to the National Weather Service in Pueblo via a toll-free 800 telephone number or the internet.

Weather Spotters will continue to be a most important link in the National Weather Service's severe weather warning decision process.  Information from weather spotters has often allowed for confirmation of severe weather after an official warning has been issued, and occasionally are the first notice that severe weather has developed in an area.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to the following e-mail:  thomas.magnuson@noaa.gov

In addition, a weather observer network has been growing across the state of Colorado over the past few years called CoCoRaHS.  People who would like to provide their readings of snowfall and precipitation to the Colorado Climate Center in Ft. Collins each day can now do so with little effort.  If you are interested in participating, more information about CoCoRaHS can be obtained from their Web site:

http://www.cocorahs.org