The Chicago office of the National Weather Service, in cooperation with Iroquois County Emergency Management Agency, will be conducting a SKYWARN spotter training seminar at the “Hub” in Watseka, 114 N 3rd Street, Watseka, IL 60970. The training will begin at 6:30pm and last about two hours on Thursday February 15th . A special program by Danny Neal will follow immediately thereafter. Danny boasts over 350,000 followers on his Illinois Storm Chasers Facebook Page. SKYWARN is a national effort to save lives during severe weather emergencies with an expanding network of trained volunteer weather spotters. SKYWARN spotters support their local community and government by providing reports of severe weather directly to the National Weather Service in Chicago by phone using the NWS spotter hotline, or by online reporting. The services performed by SKYWARN spotters have saved many lives. The National Weather Service has several devices for detecting severe thunderstorms, including Doppler radar, satellite, and lightning detection networks. However, the most important tool for observing thunderstorms is the trained eye of the storm spotter. By providing observations, SKYWARN spotters assist National Weather Service staff in their warning decisions and enable the National Weather Service to fulfill its mission of protecting life and property. Storm spotters are, and always will be, an indispensable part of the severe local storm warning program. This basic training session provides a brief overview of the National Weather Service organization and their responsibilities, severe weather safety, and basic severe weather meteorology- including how thunderstorms, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flash floods form. Anyone can become a severe weather spotter for the National Weather Service. SKYWARN training is free and open to the public. After the National Weather Service Chicago Spotter Training Course, stick around for a surprise presentation from Danny Neal, a man who has 26 years of in-the-field weather experiences, and has documented 133 tornadoes across the country. Learn the journey he took from being afraid of storms to actively pursuing and being within a few hundred yards of tornadoes. He will go more in depth on spotter safety tips through his experiences. He will guide you through his journeys in the field and show you the best- and worst, Mother Nature has to offer and why decisions were made to either keep him safe, or put him deeper into harm's way. This interactive presentation will be filled with Danny's pictures and video. You don't want to miss this exciting look inside the world of in-the-field weather documentation! Registration is requested, but not required. The registration link and more information about the program is available at 

National Weather Service Chicago Severe Weather Spotter Training in Watseka Tickets, Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 6:30 PM | Eventbrite