Eric Zammit has had what he calls an “extreme” interest in weather as long as he can remember.
So when it came time last week for the National Weather Service’s Skywarn training session in St. Charles Parish, Zammit, an emergency coordinator with the St. Charles EOC, was happy to attend.
“I’ve always been fascinated with the sky, since I was very little,” Zammit said. “We’re very vulnerable to extreme weather, here. (Skywarn) provides really good training that gives people a chance to really help, and maybe even save a life.”
Skywarn is a voluntary program developed by each National Weather Service (NWS) Office in which volunteers serve as storm spotters for the NWS and local emergency management programs. Volunteers serve as the eyes and ears for the whole community.
The goal of Skywarn is to improve the weather service’s warning program by delivering timely severe weather warnings.
The NWS needs real time reports of hail size, wind damage, flash flooding, heavy rain and tornado development in order to effectively warn the public.
Even as new technology allows NWS meteorologists to issue warnings with more lead time, spotters will always be needed as a link between radar indications of severe weather and ground truth information.
“A radar can pick something up, but having that eyewitness can be a big help and can provide information that the radar might miss,” Zammit said. “When someone can report something like a tornado and then the damage it caused, specifically, it not only can help right then and there, but it can hold a lot of weight for future warnings or to get the word out to surrounding areas.
“Most tornados are small and short lived, and they’re hard to spot on radar, so that information can be vital.”
The NWS’ Frank Revitte echoed those thoughts.“The tools we have are fairly advanced today, but we still need that reporting from the ground level,” Revitte said. “People also tend to take the warnings more seriously when you can report on the things that happen and the damage that has been caused. We try to promote awareness, and the program is a way for us to do that.”
Basic SkyWarn training sessions are conducted by meteorologists from the NWS and typically last between one and two hours.
The class discusses the definition of severe weather, safety topics, terminology, climatology, safely observing and identifying severe weather, and reporting severe weather events to your emergency management office and NWS office.
Revitte said the NWS has been putting on training sessions in various forms over the past 20 to 30 yearsStorm spotters come from all walks of life, but they all have generally two things in common: An interest in the weather and an interest in serving their community. Zammit checks both boxes.
“I began the training four years ago,” he said. “We’re one of the few parishes who are certified as storm-ready. The training has taught me a lot. You learn how to warn people and try and assist people in danger … you learn what to look for and what would qualify as severe or dangerous weather, and what comes next.”
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