Montana's Ham Radio Forum

The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Great Falls, MT is offering a weather spotters class in May.

Class date: Monday, 11 May 2015

Class time: 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Class location: Cascade County DES building, in the conference room.

This class is open to everyone! If you want to participate in the Skywarn program, this is an excellent way to learn what weather conditions the NWS wants to be warned about. Their Doppler Weather Radar is very good, but they still depend on eyewitness reports from ground observers to back-up what the radar is showing. This is especially true at the far reaches of their radar coverage.

If you live out of town and don't know where the Cascade County Disaster Emergency Services (DES) building is, please note these directions:

The Cascade County DES building is located at 521 1st Avenue NW. This is the old location of the Cascade County Weed and Mosquito Management office, as well as the County vehicle shop (both of which moved out to the new facilities near Manchester several years ago).

After normal business hours and on weekends, access to the DES building is through the vehicle yard on the back side of the building. Look for the large chain link fence gate off of 6th Street NW. If you are coming from the direction of Central Avenue West, go past the Salvation Army thrift store and turn right just before Chuck's Chinese Restaurant & Casino. Look for the park bench seat with the yellow back rest advertising "Sherlock's Home" on the right side of the street. Turn right just BEFORE this park bench.

You may park up by the building, but PLEASE remember one important thing:

-DO NOT PARK IN FRONT OF THE GARAGE DOORS! These are used at all hours of the day and night by the Cascade County Search & Rescue group. They need unhindered access to their equipment at all times!

Please help get the word out to everyone! See you there!

Do we need to register for this class?

Thanks!

Nope! No pre-registration is needed. Just be there!

The class is open to any and all. The NWS Weather Spotter's program has been around for years. Traditionally, the rural weather spotters call the NWS via telephone with their observations. The ARRL Skywarn program kicks things up a notch by adding Amateur Radio weather spotters using 2-meters to contact ham volunteers directly at the NWS Gore Hill location.

The point being that while the NWS Weather Spotter's program and the ARRL Skywarn program are very closely related, they are in fact separate programs. So the classroom will contain a mix of regular "weather spotters" and ham radio operators.

I usually attend weather spotter training every year. It is always interesting to learn how to identify dangerous storm clouds and signs of a pending tornado. There is so much interesting material presented. An annual "refresher" is a good idea!

See you there!