Utilizing the New Spotter Technology in Weather-Ready Management

The collection of real-time data relating to severe weather is critical in disaster planning, response, and recovery for NWS forecasters, broadcast meteorologists, public safety officials, and emergency managers (i.e. Integrated Warning Team). Even with up to the minute data from radar, satellite and other observing systems, the technology alone cannot detect all aspects of severe weather that happen. To help augment the detection of severe weather, some 300,000 volunteer SKYWARN® weather spotters are relied upon for in-the-field observations and reports that give confidence to NWS forecasters in issuing or not issuing, upgrading or downgrading, and giving credibility to the call-to-action statements that are included in any warnings.

Since the start of the NWS SKYWARN program (in the 1960's), it has operated in a de-centralized manner. This nebulous structure limited any improvements that could be made toward standardizing the training, the tracking, and the reporting by spotters. That was until 2006, when Spotter Network™ pioneered a web-based system to dynamically track and capture storm reports from individual weather spotters. For the first time, spotter locations and their associated storm reports could be viewed in real-time overlaid with radar, satellite or other geographically based data. Such real-time visuals give meteorological and public safety officials an enhanced visualization tool for situational awareness and disaster decision support during significant events.

In August 2012, the NWS SKYWARN Program and Spotter Network agreed to partner their resources and employ the Spotter Training, Tracking, and Reporting System (STTARS). This provides a real-time mapping of the active spotters and their storm reports across the country at any given moment. This paper provides an overview of how the system operates and what advantages it brings to the Integrated Warning Team. This has the added advantage that it can easily be expanded to all-hazard spotting with additional training. STTARS is an out-of-the-cloud “Weather-Ready” solution that requires little work on part of public safety personnel. Managers can now see, coordinate, and strategically position their volunteer field observers in a logistically meaningful manner.