National Weather Service informs public of severe weather spotting
Storm spotters can help when radar provides limited information.
Published Feb. 27, 2009
A meteorologist held a class Thursday evening to teach people without any experience in his field how to spot severe weather and how to conduct proper safety procedures in such situations.
The class was run by the Columbia/Boone County Office of Emergency Management and was held at City Hall on a day in which Columbia saw its own share of severe weather: thunderstorms had occurred intermittently throughout the day, and it was still raining as the class began.
Jim Kramper, a warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in St. Louis, has been holding classes like these for 23 years.
He said the class was an important source of education, and also said that having weather spotters, who are otherwise normal citizens, was also vital to the public's safety.
"We cannot solely depend on radar," he said. "We will have much better warnings if we have people telling us ground information."
He said meteorologists have a very limited scope with Doppler radar, which is used to track weather patterns.
"We can't see tornadoes on Doppler radar," Kramper said. "That's why we need people to tell us."
He told those present in the class to spread the information.
During the class, Kramper discussed various forms of severe weather. The beginning of the class was dedicated to tornadoes and the second half was used to cover wind damage, hail, flooding and winter storms.
Kramper said winter storms tended to give meteorologists the most trouble.
People came to the class for a variety of reasons.
Kevin Wolfe, a communications operator for the Columbia/Boone County Joint Communications Center, said his employer required him to attend the seminar. Wolfe said he has been attending the classes for six years.
Wolfe said he thought it was important to get members of the public involved in weather spotting because they would be more effective at providing information to emergency dispatchers.
"Whenever they're calling in for emergencies they know what information they need to give us in order for us to react," Wolfe said.
Others came to the class out of general curiosity.
Columbia resident Barbara Becker said she saw an advertisement on television for the class and had previously been interested in the subject.
Ron Murray, a volunteer firefighter for Boone County, said he was interested to get more information out and to get the public more involved.
Senior Justin Titus, an atmospheric sciences major, said he had heard about the class through the Meteorology club. He said he has attended a dozen or so weather spotting classes.
"The classes always have good lessons here storm spotting and weather in general," Titus said.
Titus said it is important to have the community involved in storm spotting to give meteorologists a better idea of what they're dealing with.
"The more eyes on a storm the more information a meteorologist can collect on a storm," Titus said. "It's also good to have the community know how to survive a storm safely."
Kramper said severe weather spotting classes got started in the 1950's but didn't become popular until the 1970's.
"Meteorologists quickly realized that radar could only tell them so much," Kramper said. He said meteorologists could always use more weather spotters.
"Many of the people are here because of curiosity," Kramper said. "Only a handful of them will ever call in to report a storm."