Severe weather education class Monday

Severe weather education class Monday News Staff Fri, 03/15/2024 - 12:09 pm

• (THE GRAHAM LEADER | ARCHIVE PHOTO) National Weather Service Meteorologist Tom Bradshaw presents a severe weather education class in Young County in March 2022. After a one-year lapse, the class will return Monday, March 18 to Young County with free public attendance.

Thomas Wallner editor@grahamleader.com

As spring severe weather approaches, the National Weather Service and Graham Fire and Rescue will be partnering for a severe weather education class open to the public Monday.

The in-person class will be conducted by the Fort Worth office of the National Weather Service from 6-8 p.m. Monday, March 18 at the North Central Texas College Graham campus. The class is officially known as the SKYWARN Storm Spotter Training Class.

SKYWARN is a volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters. The spotters help to keep their local communities safe by providing accurate reports of severe weather in a timely manner.

The classes are hosted with NWS forecasters to help prepare storm spotters for the upcoming severe weather season and to provide information to the public.

“This class is for established storm spotters and/or anyone who is interested in learning more about severe weather threats in North and Central Texas and how to be prepared,” NWS wrote in a release. “The class will feature an in-depth review and study of the various threats posed by severe thunderstorms.”

The program additionally will teach thunderstorm characteristics and features of severe and non-severe storms. One important feature of the class is highlighting severe weather safety and reporting severe weather to NWS and local public safety officials.

There is no cost to attend the class, no pre-registration required and attendance is not limited to Young County residents.
The Young County class is one of many programs put on by NWS Fort Worth as an annual weather preparedness campaign from January through March.

Other upcoming SKYWARN classes are an in-person class at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20 at the Comanche County EOC, an NWS SKYWARN advanced virtual class at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 21, an in-person class at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 23 at the UNT Dallas Founders Hall and another NWS SKYWARN advanced virtual course which has not been scheduled.

More information regarding the program can be found online at weather.gov/SKYWARN .

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