The Spotter Network (SN) is a system that utilizes storm spotter and chaser reports of location and

severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmos ...

in a centralized framework for use by coordinators such as emergency managers,

Skywarn Skywarn (sometimes stylized as SKYWARN) is a program of the National Weather Service (NWS). Its mission is to collect reports of localized severe weather in the United States. These reports are used to aid forecasters in issuing and verifying sev ...

and related spotter organizations, and the

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the ...

. It uses

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

to provide accurate and automated position data of storm spotters and chasers for coordination and reporting, which in turn provides

ground truth Ground truth is information that is known to be real or true, provided by direct observation and measurement (i.e. empirical evidence) as opposed to information provided by inference. Etymology The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (s.v. "ground t ...

to public servants engaged in the protection of life and property. The network is a combination of locally installed software for position and status reporting and web-based processing, mapping, and reporting. The original Spotter Network was developed by Tyler Allison. The current president of the organization is John Wetter. It became operational in April 2006 and quickly grew to over 100 spotters. Several National Weather Service (NWS) employees and other officials soon took an interest in the capabilities it brings to them to integrate ground truth provided by spotters into their operational responsibilities. Subsequent versions of the network expanded the coordinator and reporting capabilities, and NWS eSpotter integration was completed in early September 2006. Spotters must pass an online test of storm structure and basic meteorology in order to use the system. All reports are also reviewed for quality control purposes. Contact information is provided by users and can be controlled to reach the all users (the general public) or selectively to reach emergency managers and NWS officials. SN features GIS capabilities for use with external websites and apps. Several papers have been written on the use of the Spotter Network in meteorological research and operations such as: * Emerging Technologies in the Field to Improve Information in Support of Operations and Research * The Digital Revolution of Storm Spotting Modernizations of Training, Tracking, and Reporting * Enriching the Modern Day Storm Spotter Through Technology & Education Enhancements The SN is officially a

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

non-profit corporation, and is recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

and is run as an organization of like-minded individuals taking input from the various communities that it serves and making the output available to any and all who are interested in severe weather. The SN has a Board of Directors and an advisory committee made up professional meteorologists, storm spotters, storm chasers, emergency response personnel, and NWS officials. On February 26th, 2017 storm chasers paid respects to 'Twister' star Bill Paxton by arranging their position indicators to form the initials BP.

Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS, is a network of volunteer weather observers in the United States, Canada, and the Bahamas that take daily readings of precipitation and report them to a central data store over ...

(CoCoRaHS) *

Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is an emergency radio service authorized in Part 97.407 of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and regulations governing amateur radio in the United States.Amateur Radio Emergency Service In the United States and Canada, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a corps of trained amateur radio operator volunteers organized to assist in public service and emergency communications. It is organized and sponsored by the Amer ...

(ARES) *

Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams REACT (Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams) began as a CB radio Emergency Channel 9 monitoring organization across the United States and Canada in 1962. Initially, the primary role of REACT volunteers was to monitor Channel 9, the CB Em ...

(REACT)

References

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External links

SpotterNetwork website

Twitter account

Facebook page

NWS Skywarn homepage
Emergency communication Disaster preparedness in the United States National Weather Service Meteorological data and networks Amateur radio emergency communications organizations

See also

References

External links