Storm Spotters Outpace Radar

By Adam Kealoha Causey
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/18/2006

Storm spotter Joe Edwards was wide awake early Monday when a tornado ripped through northwest Lincoln County. He figures almost everyone else was asleep.

Edwards stayed up chattering on his ham radio so he could help other spotters "talk through" a tornado that destroyed homes along its 20-mile path, starting near Olney and heading to near the intersection of Highways 61 and F.

"I never even got to bed," said Edwards, whose day job is as a mechanic for the Lincoln County Public Works Department.

Storm spotters are trained volunteers who assist the National Weather Service in issuing severe storm warnings. Many of the 266 certified spotters in St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren counties tried to provide information during the recent severe weather.

Storm spotters take a weather service course to learn what different types of clouds do, how to properly measure the size of hail and how to distinguish funnel clouds from tornadoes, among other weather facts. After completing training, spotters receive identification numbers that make them official sources for storm information.

When Edwards and other spotters "talk through" storms, they are informing one another, the weather service and county emergency officials of what they see because, as their names suggest, they are on the spots where bad weather occurs.

"The important thing the weather service wants to hear about is wind speed and hail size," Edwards said.

Spotters determine wind speed using gauges known as anemometers or based on what objects the wind is moving. Sometimes the wind rips shingles from roofs or breaks limbs off healthy trees.