2007 SKYWARN Recognition Day

Hams and the National Weather Service: Working Together for SKYWARN Recognition Day:


The Ninth Annual SKYWARN Recognition Day recognizes Amateur Radio operators for their commitment to help keep communities safe. Co-sponsored by the ARRL and the National Weather Service (NWS), the event is scheduled for Saturday, December 1. During this 24 hour special event, Amateur Radio operators, working together with their local NWS offices, will activate Amateur Radio stations and work as a team to contact other hams across the world.

"This is a fun event," said ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP. "For 364 days of the year, hams aid in providing the NWS offices with real-time information on severe weather when people and property are at risk. But this one day is for fun, friendship and recognition of the critical services given to communities by the hams."

Scott Mentzer, N0QE, organizer of the event and Meteorologist-In-Charge at the NWS office in Goodland, Kansas, concurred. "Radio amateurs are a tremendous resource for the National Weather Service. These folks are dedicated, and the assistance they provide throughout the year is invaluable. SKYWARN Recognition Day is our way of saying thank you."

In 2006, 90 NWS offices across the country participated and logged more than 16,000 radio contacts, according to Goodland's Warning Coordination Meteorologist David Floyd, N5DBZ. In typical SKYWARN operations during severe weather, direct communication between mobile spotters and local NWS offices provides critical "ground truth" information for forecasters. In summer, spotter reports of hail size, wind damage and storm rotation in real time greatly assist the radar warning operator, since that information can be correlated with Doppler radar displays. In winter, snow nets are held, where reports of snow totals, ice accumulations and whiteout conditions in blowing snow help NWS forecasters assess the extent and severity of winter storms. In recent years during wildfire situations, Amateur Radio operators have reported the precise locations of thick smoke and zero visibility, allowing forecasters to provide crucial weather updates to fire fighters.

"NWS offices utilize the real-time reporting of weather events to assist in warning operations, but certainly hurricanes Katrina and Rita have shown us that ham radio operators are equally important during the recovery phase of large-scale natural disasters," Floyd pointed out. He also cited the example of the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN). He notes that the HWN, organized in 1965 during Hurricane Betsy, started out as an informal group of amateurs but has since developed a formal relationship with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami via its Amateur Radio station WX4NHC. Ham radio operators and volunteers at Miami work together when hurricanes threaten to provide real-time weather data and damage reports to the Hurricane Center's forecasters.

For more information on SKYWARN Recognition Day, including a list of participating NWS offices, QSL card and certificate information, please see the NWS Web site.

The Morristown TN NWS ham plans to be on the air also but at the time of this posting details were still being worked out.