SKYWARN is
a public safety partnership between the National Weather
Service (NWS), local emergency managers (EMs) and the
general public.
The
NWS provides training to storm spotters while the EMs
are more involved with the organization and logistical
end of
scheduling training and organizing the groups.
Typically, the NWS calls
the local EM to activate area spotters
when significant or widespread severe weather
is expected. Once activated, spotter
groups relay their reports through the
EM or his designee to the NWS. This implies
that spotters will have rapid two-way field
communications (e.g. law enforcement, highway
department workers, volunteer or professional
fire fighters and local amateur radio operators
working with amateur radio emergency services
(ARES) groups). We also welcome individuals
that wish to operate as independent SKYWARN
participants and who can report from their
home and/or while in the field.
Each
year, the NWS and American Radio Relay
League
(ARRL) organize a special SKYWARN Recognition
Day. It celebrates the contributions that
volunteer SKYWARN radio operators make
to the NWS. During the full day event, SKYWARN
operators visit NWS offices and contact
other radio operators across the world.
The NWS works closely with
emergency managers and officials across New Mexico
to organize and schedule spotter training classes each
year.
The critical common element will be
a capability to maintain communications with one of
our forecast offices. To
that end, spotters are encouraged to obtain an amateur
radio license in order to participate in ARES
SKYWARN groups. This ensures rapid and direct communication
with our office, using a well organized amateur radio
repeater system. Those SKYWARN participants who are
independent of more formal groups call NWS Albuquerque,
El Paso or Midland with
field reports whenever hazardous weather is observed. If
you agree to be added to our spotter list, then NWS
personnel may, at times, initiate
a call to
you or call you directly
once they are aware that you are available and reporting
from
a field
location.
For additional information on training
or local ARES coordinators that could assist you, please
contact:
For the Albuquerque WFO: contact Ken
Drozd, senior meteorologist, at Kenneth.Drozd@noaa.gov,
or Jesse Haro, Warning Coordination Meteorologist
(WCM) at Jesus.Haro@noaa.gov,
or call (505) 244-9150x223.
For the El paso WFO:
contact John
Fausett
(WCM) at
John.Fausett@noaa.gov,
or call 505) 589-4088.
For the midland, Texas WFO: contact
Pat Vesper (WCM) at Pat.Vesper@noaa.gov or call (432)
563-5006.
To find out
what county warning area you live in, click
on this link of New Mexico's county warning area.
The NWS Albuquerque office, located on the west side
of the Albuquerque Sunport airport, has both 2M and
70CM amateur radio. Vanity call WX5ABQ (WX
weather, region 5, and ABQ international identifier
for Albuquerque airport and NWS office) is normally
used whenever the station is on the air.
For SKYWARN, the NWS offices primarily use the MegaLink
repeater system which provides coverage into most
of the NWS office's county warning areas. The Albnuquerque
office may also use several of the Upper
Rio FM Society repeaters
(146.940 or 146.900) as well as other local repeaters
from near Santa Fe (147.200 or 147.300), Los Alamos
(145.190), Bernalillo-Rio Rancho (147.100), Belen (146.700)
and Socorro (146.680) whenever severe weather threatens
along the Rio Grande Valley and over west central New
Mexico.
Although we do have a number of staff licensed to operate
the amateur stations at all three field offices,
there are times when these licensed personnel are not
on
duty
and times
when
other duties prevent us from monitoring the amateur
radio.
A guest operator may then be called in to assist us.
If you can't raise us directly on the radio, you may
check station status or request station activation
with a phone call to the toll-free number at the Albuquerque
office: 1-888-386-7637 or via the Upper Rio FM auto-patch
using codes 365
or 9365 (after hours emergency phone patch). For more
general SKYWARN information for West Texas, click on
the URL below:
Spotters can contribute snow and road
condition reports as well as heavy
rain and severe thunderstorm reports.
We encourage both home location reporting and
reports from spotters that may be traveling
across the
state.
Have you designated a central contract
point within a amateur spotter group?
It's usually best to have
one to two folks designated as primary group
contact points. This helps us request
spotter activation
and then manage reports during an
event. It's left up to
the group to decide whether to communicate as
a group on a local repeater or simplex
and then have someone
relay reports to us via MegaLINK, other repeater
or by phone. However, please let
us
know which frequency
the group uses so we can monitor if possible.
National Weather Service
Albuquerque Weather Forecast Office
2341 Clark Carr LP SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
Ph: 505.243.0702
Web Master's Email: ABQ Webmaster
Page Author: WFO Albuquerque, NM
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