Lawrence County Skywarn

The Lawrence County Amateur Radio Club Skywarn team consist of Licensed Amateur Radio Operators trained by the National Weather Service (NWS) to recognize the signs of sever Weather when it approaches. In turn, we report these conditions to the NWS so that a timely warning can be issued to help save the lives of those in the path of these storms. When sever weather conditions exist, all trained spotters become more alert to there surrounding weather conditions and a standby net will be started on the 147.045+ repeater. In the event that conditions become sever the net will switch into active mode and a formal net will be started. The net control station will take checkins from our group of trained spotters and there location. A spotter will look for the following conditions:

Severe weather spotters should report:

Severe weather observations that exceed the minimum reporting criteria established by the net control station, including: 

• Tornado, funnel cloud, or associated cloud rotation

• Hail greater than ¾ inch diameter

• Winds in excess of 58 mph

• Excessive rain

• Frequent lightning

• Flooding

• Storm Damage

• Threats to life or property

 Observations should include:

• Time that the condition was observed, if other than current

• Source of the report, if not a personal observation

• Description of the condition

• Location of the reporting station (using common references) and relative location of the severe weather condition if different than their location. This should include the estimated direction and speed of the severe weather condition, if possible

• Description of damage, and injuries

 Observations should not include “light rain here”, “clear in the west”, etc., reports unless requested by net control.

These reports will then be relayed to the NWS by net control station.

If you need more information please review this PDF file Lawrence County Skywarn Plan. This requires Adobe Reader.