The ongoing pandemic has changed how we do do things including how we present your daily weather forecasts. The NBC 5 Weather Experts have all been working from home this year.
As we prepare for the upcoming severe weather season, the National Weather Service is going virtual, too. This year all SKYWARN Spotter training classes will be done online.
The National Weather Service in Fort Worth's 2021 SKYWARN Class Schedule is now posted here. The first class takes place Wednesday, January 13.
Anyone interested can attend the class scheduled for their local county or one of the publicly scheduled classes. Advanced classes will be offered as a separate class this year.
All classes are free and open to the public. Once people register, attendees will get an email providing them a link to join the class when it's time. You can even do this right before the class starts. You do not need a camera, just the ability to view the National Weather Service screen and volume to hear the meteorologist speak.
The SKYWARN presentation covers severe thunderstorm characteristics, cloud formations, identifying the different threats associated with severe storms, how to report and basic weather safety.
SKYWARN is a citizen volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters. Volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports to the National Weather Service. The main responsibility of a trainer spotter is to provide the National Weather Service meteorologists with reports describing and identifying severe storms in their local area.
