When the first of a swarm of 20 tornadoes touched down across North Texas on April 3, 2012, a trained weather spotter's observation from Johnson County helped speed up the initial tornado warning by the National Weather Service.
"That first tornado looked suspicious on radar, but then a spotter called it in and that clarified it for us. We were able to respond and get warnings out immediately," Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist at the NWS office in Fort Worth, said Monday."That's a classic example of how important storm spotters are for us," she said, noting that before that day was done, more than 5 million people in the Dallas-Fort Worth region were under a tornado warning at some point."We can't be the eyes in the field, and that's where storm spotters play a critical role. Radar is a tool that can give us critical information, but that visual information can be vital. The radar beam is 100 feet off the ground, and it can't sample what is happening close to the ground," Dunn said, adding that the office relies on a network of hundreds of active spotters in the region.With the 2013 severe weather season approaching, the NWS Fort Worth office will be holding more than 60 storm-spotter training sessions between January and March across its coverage area of 46 counties in North and North Central Texas.The first local training session of the SKYWARN severe weather program will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 26 at South Hills High School in Fort Worth. Held in conjunction with the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County Emergency Management, the free session begins with basic talks in the morning followed by advance sessions in the afternoon.The program will discuss thunderstorm formation, ingredients and features associated with severe storms. It will also give insight into why some storms generate tornadoes and some do not, according to Mark Fox, warning coordination meteorologist at the Fort Worth office."We have quite a bit of new material for this year's spotter training program," he said."We will be showing data from the severe weather events of 2012, plus emphasize how your storm observations help to save lives."The program is free and open to the public. No advanced registration is necessary.Additional Tarrant County programs will be held in Colleyville on March 2 and Mansfield on March 23.For a complete listing of sessions, check the SKYWARN schedule on the home page of NWS office in Fort Worth at www.sh.noaa.gov/fwd.Steve Campbell,817-390-7981Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
