Staying put, and staying ready

Nothing in the SKYWARNThe National Weather Service's own volunteer spotter programme, formalised in the 1960s, which supplies the ground truth behind warnings. Training is run by local forecast offices, so only a forecast office can make somebody SKYWARN-trained. model requires you to chase

This needs saying because the culture implies otherwise and the photographs certainly do. The NWS spotter model is about ground truthWhat actually happened at the surface, as distinct from what a radar or a model inferred. It is the thing a spotter supplies, and the reason the network exists at all., not about proximity. A spotter reporting hail size, wind damage, water over a road or a wall cloudA localized, persistent lowering beneath the updraft base, on the rear inflow side of a storm, marking where air is being drawn up. Not all of them rotate, and a rotating one is what you report. from a known fixed location is doing exactly the thing the network was built for.

Add the reporting side. Reports here are cross-checked against radar rather than judged on how close the observer was, so proximity buys you nothing at all in how your report is treated, while costing you every risk in lessons 2 through 6.

Night

Lesson 5 gave the numbers: nocturnal tornadoes are about 2.5 times as likely to kill, and they cause a share of fatalities far above their share of events. For a spotter specifically, every technique in modules 3 and 4 depends on seeing structure, and after dark there is no structure to see.

What you can still do from a fixed location at night is considerable, and it is the part offices are short of: wind damage as it happens, hail with a measurement, water rising over a road you know, and the sound of a circulation you cannot see. Report what you heard and say that you heard it rather than saw it. That is a real observation, properly labelled.

The checklist

Assembled once, before the season, and checked at the start of it. Most of this is lesson 2 in physical form.

The vehicle

Fuel above half. Tyres good, spare inflated, and the tools to change it. Wipers that clear the screen properly. All lights working.

Information

NOAA Weather RadioNOAA Weather RadioThe National Weather Service broadcasting its own products directly on dedicated radio frequencies. It keeps working when the internet and the phone network do not., which works when the mobile network does not. A charged phone and a power bank. Radar on something with a battery. Paper maps, plus offline maps on the device.

Communication

Whatever your net uses. Module 10 covers this properly, and the safety point is simply that somebody should know where you are and when you expect to be back.

If it goes wrong

First aid kit. Headlamp, so your hands are free. Reflective vest, for the roadside that lesson 2 says you will eventually be standing on. Rain gear. Water.

For the report

A reliable way to fix your position and the event position, and something of known size to photograph hail against. Module 7 lesson 6.