(Shenandoah) – Even with today's technology, human eyes are needed to warn the public of approaching severe weather.
Individuals with that responsibility gathered in Shenandoah Monday night for the National Weather Service's storm spotter training course. Weather Service meteorologist Becky Kern provided a primer on severe weather categories, how to report tornadoes, severe storms and other information. Kern tells KMA News the Weather Service trains observers throughout the region through its office in Valley, Nebraska.
“We cover 38 counties in eastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa,” Kern said. “And it's important for the National Weather Service to have spotters be our eyes, to see exactly what's happening on the ground, because we only have so many instruments that we can use to see exactly what's happening on the ground. So we need as many storm spotters as possible to achieve that.”
Having “eyes on the ground” is important, Kern says, because the Weather Service's radar can't detect everything.
“We have our instruments, and all of our instruments have limits,” she said. “In southwest Iowa, the lowest we can see is about 5,000 feet. Additionally, satellite information is only good from outer space, which we are looking at.” Cloud tops, so we really depend on the eyes of observers to know what's really happening on Earth.
“What it also helps us with is knowing how to provide the warning in advance. Do we need to continue the warning to the next county or city? Or can we leave it until it expires, or cancel it early for those people?” she added.
In addition to explaining the differences between weather watches and warnings, shelf tows and wall tows, funnel clouds and tornadoes, Kern also emphasized the safety importance of storm spotting.
“If you're going to stop, try to do it at an intersection where you have four roads, so you can go in different directions if the storm moves through,” Kern said. “Driving through flooded roads is a bad idea – that's how we cause a lot of weather-related deaths due to flooding. So, you don't know what the road bed is underneath all that water. So, please don't drive through water.” Bridges can also be washed, and we don't want anyone to get into trouble this way.
“Staying safe out of the path of the storm and at a safe distance is first and foremost,” Kern added.
With the threat of severe storms every year, Kern says it's important for the weather service to educate as many people as possible about storm detection techniques.
