Spotting storms: local volunteers head to class

Mother Nature brought out her own show-and-tell for last week’s SkyWarn class in Greene County.  While meteorologist inside talked about mesocyclones, outflows and downbursts, outside, lightening flashed, thunder rolled and yes, the sky did fall in millions of water droplets. 
More than a few of the almost 100 volunteers assembled to learn the art of being a storm-spotter caught the irony of a bad weather class being held at the Four Seasons.  Weather outside was severe enough to send local meteorologist Clayton Stiver to the computer during breaks to check on current weather advisories, watches and warnings for the local area.
Main speaker Nikole Listemaa, meteorologist from the National Weather Service, thanked the crowd for volunteering to help the service do the vital job of informing the public of what is actually happening in the surrounding area.
“Storm spotters are a very important part of our job,“ stressed Listemaa.  “You give us proof of what our instruments are telling us.  We can’t do the job without you.“ 
The crowd learned some fascinating and sometimes funny facts about thunderstorm injuries.  Women in the audience responded in the affirmative when Listemaa quoted statistics showing that thunderstorm fatalities for men are twice that for women. (Studies suggest this is because men have more outside jobs and have a tendency toward risky behavior.)
The class was a short course about the conditions leading up to the formation of severe weather and how to recognize the signs of those weather formations.  Volunteers were given Basic Spotters’ Field Guides to help them in their work. 
Spotting formation of weather and identifying it is only part of the job.  Relaying the information to the weather service is also important. 
“Reports can be called in, emailed in or sent by amateur radio operators,“ explained Listemaa.  “However, if the information is time sensitive - don’t email it.“ 
“It is also important when reporting to be as exact as possible,“ continued Listemaa. “When describing hail, we like to use the money system: penny/nickel/dime or quarter sized.  Don’t use marble-sized since marbles come in many sizes.“
“Once you get past the size of coins, you can use fruit or sports comparisons.  Baseball, golf ball, grapefruit-sized are fine.  Just don’t go outside in the middle of the storm to measure the hailstones,“ she added with a laugh. 
Spotters who signed up will also receive special identification numbers to use when calling in their information.  Spotters could also volunteer to be on-call to receive questions from the weather service concerning current weather conditions. 
SkyWarn classes and completion of other criteria have earned Greene County “StormReady” status making it one of only 23 localities in Virginia with that designation.  Page and Greene Counties are the only designated “StormReady” communities in our area. 
The other nearest “StormReady” communities are Roanoke to the south, Richmond to the east and the Fairfax/Alexandria area to the north. 
According to the National Weather Service, America is the most severe weather prone country on Earth with Americans annually experiencing an average of 10,000 thunderstorms, 5,000 floods and 1, 000 tornadoes.  Severe weather causes almost 90% of all presidentially-declared disaster areas. 
This class of volunteer storm spotters is well on its way toward making sure that when Greene County gets some of that severe weather, the public and the people who tell us what is happening have all the information possible.