Severe Weather Nets

The mission of SKYWARN is to provide time sensitive "ground truth" information to the National Weather Service on severe weather. The National Weather Service uses this information to issue or verify Watches and Warnings for specific areas. Triad SKYWARN will activate a Severe Weather Net at the request of the National Weather Service or at the discretion of the SKYWARN Leadership team to collect spotter reports throughout the Triad.

Net Procedures

Whenever severe weather threatens, spotters are requested to monitor the primary 147.255 K4ITL repeater to relay reports to the National Weather Service. If SKYWARN is active, you will hear a Net Control Station making announcements and/or the courtesy tone of the repeater will be changed to a CW "S" to signify that SKYWARN is active. SKYWARN has three activation modes depending on the current situation:

• Standby - Severe weather is threatening but has not entered the area.
• Active - Severe weather has entered the area and Skywarn Net Control Stations are taking and soliciting reports from the coverage area
• Emergency - Severe weather is impacting a specific location and the NCS is soliciting specific reports from a certain location.

IMPORTANT - Spotter Reports are always wanted when severe weather threatens, however there is specific reporting Criteria that has been defined by the National Weather Service. If you do not have criteria reports, please do not provide a non-criteria report unless the NCS station specifically requests it.