National Weather Service

Skywarn (TM) spotter News

Spring 2009 Edition

From the National Weather Service - Seattle

You’ve asked for it. You’ve waited patiently for it. Now it is finally here! After several years of on-line security review, eSpotter is now available, making its debut for NWS Seattle in April.

What is eSpotter?  It is a means to provide your spotter report on-line!  For complete information and registration,

To register, go to the ‘New to eSpotter?’ link.  Complete the desired information and an email is sent to us that permits us to grant

access to the program for you.   Once the grant access is done, you will get an email with confirmation and a bit more information.

That’s it!

Again, go to http://espotter.weather.gov/ for all the information about eSpotter. When your spotter report is submitted, it generates an alarm in the forecast office notifying staff of your report. It is also in a format that is compatible for transmission as a Local Storm Report on our web page, to the emergency management community and to area press, just like it has been done for years.

But please note – eSpotter does NOT replace the spotter phone line. If you see critical weather like a tornado, waterspout, funnel cloud or flash flooding, call us immediately! Time can be important in helping save lives and property!

Spring is just around the corner, despite our cool weather this winter. And that means the peak of our thunderstorm season is almost here. Longer warmer days combined with cool air aloft still moving onshore from the northeast Pacific Ocean creates periods of unstable air and our seasonal thunderstorm season. And amazingly enough, our thunderstorm season seems to kick in close to the first of March, and it did it again this year!

Compared with other areas east of the Rockies, we do not get many thunderstorms. For instance, many parts of Florida get over 200 thunderstorms per year while we average about 10. Yet, even our thunderstorms can and have produced large hail, damaging winds, and even tornados and waterspouts.

Our active convection season usually occur during our transitional seasons into and out of winter - fall and spring. April is usually our peak month for convection. In our history, the bulk of our tornadoes have occurred in April and May, including the only three F3 tornadoes ever reported in the state.

Fortunately, most Washington tornadoes are weak F0 or F1 Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale events, and touch down and back up in less than a few minutes. These kinds of tornadoes are usually not apparent on NWS Doppler weather radar and when unstable weather conditions are present, often more than one can and do occur in a day. Your Skywarn (TM) spotter reports of wall clouds, funnel clouds, tornadoes and waterspouts are very important in the effort to help protect lives and property.

It is time again to review your Spotter Field Guide and brush up on your convective weather spotter skills. If you need another Field Guide or spotter criteria sheet, contact Ted or Jay on the spotter phone line and we’ll mail you a copy.

Thunderstorms can produce strong damaging winds, flash or urban flooding from heavy rainfall, large hail, lightning and even tornadoes. Lightning is dangerous - remember your lightning safety rules. Washington averages one lightning related death every three years, and several injuries each year. If you can hear thunder, you’re close enough to be struck by lightning!

Report pea-sized or larger hail with any damage if noted. Also report heavy rainfall of at least one-half inch in an hour or less. If you see flooding of any kind and/or winds of at least 35 MPH, contact us.

Report tornados, waterspouts, funnel clouds, and rotating wall clouds as soon as you can, along with where you are and the event’s location and direction of movement. Remember the distinction between a funnel cloud and the more common western Washington “scud” cloud? As emphasized in our training class, look for rotation, ROTATION, ROTATION.

Your spotter reports are a key element in the team effort to protect lives and property. Keep an eye to the sky when you learn of a threat of thunderstorms via NOAA Weather Radio, our web site, or from local media. To help raise public awareness, NWS offices throughout the Pacific Northwest plan to conduct a Severe Weather Awareness Week during May 3-9. See weather.gov/seattle/ in early May for all the information about this region-wide awareness week.

Here is a link to the Office of the Washington State Climatologist, where you can find Weather reviews for each month.

The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) network continues to expand with hundreds of new volunteer weather observers across the region, including many SKYWARN spotters. There are now over 560 CoCoRaHS observers across the Evergreen State. The response has been huge and your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for participating.

As we have all experienced, this was an active winter with many lowland snow events across western Washington. Given that we live in a geographically diverse region, there will always be some variability in precipitation across our area. The increase in snow reports played a large role this past December. The daily snow reports from CoCoRaHS were used by the National Weather Service, county Emergency Managers, city officials and the local media to help identify areas that received heavy snowfall over a period of several weeks.

CoCoRaHS daily records are automatically accessible online for all to see and compare. Data is tabulated and plotted on country, state and county maps. In addition, heavy rainfall or snowfall and hail reports are sent directly to National Weather Service meteorologists. These timely reports will be crucial during hazardous weather events. Come join the CoCoRaHS network today!

What Do I Need? -- A standard, plastic, 4” rain gauge (cost about $30). Hail pad (optional). Snow board (optional).

How to Report? -- Observers log entries online. Both daily (24 hr totals) and event driven (heavy rainfall or snowfall, hail) reports desired. Multi-Day reports also available if you’re out of town.

Training? -- Online training available. Remote and in-person training sessions scheduled as needed.

What Else? -- Contact Jeff Michalski, western Washington CoCoRaHS coordinator (jeff.michalski@noaa.gov) for any additional questions about the program.

Skywarn (TM) Spotter News via E-Mail - In an effort to reduce our taxpayer funded mailing costs, we would like to promote use of email vs hard-copy mailings. If you would like to be notified by an email message that the latest edition of our quarterly spotter newsletter is available on our web site, please contact Jay Neher at jay.neher@noaa.gov, and we will add you to our email address book.

Moving? - If you have moved or are planning to move soon, please let us know your new address. We often get a number of spotter mailings returned with changed or unable to forward post office messages. If you have moved to another western Washington county, we will need to change your spotter number to that county. If you move beyond our area, we can forward your information to the corresponding NWS office. Please contact our database manager at jay.neher@noaa.gov . Thank you in advance!

Spotter Training Update - Skywarn Weather Spotter Training was held in Jefferson and Thurston counties since December. About 60 people attended these training sessions – welcome to the Skywarn team! We now have just over 1300 weather spotters in western Washington and for the first time ever, over 90% of them have gone through training. Congratulations!

Look for spotter training announcements either in your mailbox or via our web site here. More training will be held again in the fall too.

‘Spotter Tips’ On-Line - We have updated our ‘spotter tips’ publication. It is available for you to obtain via our web site at www.weather.gov/seattle. From our ‘spotters’ front page link, look for the link to ‘spotter tips’ for an easy to print out .pdf file. The tip sheet offers questions to answer and tips while reporting specific weather elements. You will find the tip sheet to be quite helpful while preparing and reporting your spotter reports.

Pacific NW Weather Scramble Date Set - The date for this annual golf outing has been set for Sat Aug 15, again at Ft Lewis Golf Course just off Interstate-5 at exit 116 south of Tacoma. The event is a fun networking opportunity for those in the weather community, including weather spotters. Entries will be available soon. If interested in an entry, contact Ted Buehner at ted.buehner@noaa.gov

Courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service’s NW Weather and Avalanche Center. http://nwac.us/