MURRAY – The Murray State University Amateur Radio Club (MSUARC) and Calloway County Office of Emergency Management (CCOEM) activated four Skywarn nets during recent severe weather episodes.
A Skywarn net is a gathering of ham radio operators on a specific radio channel during times of severe weather where they provide immediate weather information from their location. Most of the local participants have been trained as weather spotters in classes offered by the Paducah office of the National Weather Service, but that is not a requirement of participating in the net.
Skywarn weather spotter training is free and open to the public. MSUARC and CCOEM sponsored a Murray training in March and trainings are also available in other communities or at the Paducah National Weather Service web site www.weather.gov/pah.
At the time of recent tornado warnings, Mr. Bill Call, Deputy Emergency Manager for Calloway County, was the Net Control Operator and sent out a radio call for all licensed radio operators and trained Skywarn weather spotters to check-in and report any severe weather witnessed, local damage observed or unusual events. Mr. Call, in turn, relayed important weather information (tornado or funnel formation, hail timing, location, and size, extreme wind, etc.) directly to the National Weather Service office in Paducah. The NWS uses this “ground truth” to aid their decisions about issuing warnings. Local emergency management personnel are also able to take advantage of this information from radio operators throughout the county.
During the recent severe weather episodes, Skywarn nets were conducted on March 30 with 24 spotters checking in; twice on April 2 with 41 spotters checking in the first net and 13 the second; and on April 4 with 19 check-ins.
Anyone interested in learning more about ham radio can check out www.k4msu.com or attend the monthly meetings at 7:00pm on the first Tuesday of each month in the Freed Curd Auditorium in the Collins Industry and Technology Center at MSU.
