About Our Skywarn Program
NWS Lubbock has about 850 trained, volunteer storm spotters in our county warning area (the 24 counties surrounding Lubbock). Every year, from about February 15 through April 30, we teach about 30 spotter training classes. Most classes are taught at local fire departments since the vast majority of our spotters are volunteer firefighters. In some cases, the classes are taught at police departments, community centers, etc.
Although NWS spotter classes are open to the public, the training is geared toward teams that can deploy into the field withmobile communications to a central dispatch. In other words, the system works best when a team of spotters (say, a fire department) can communicate their information very quickly to a relay center (say, the local sheriff office's dispatcher) that can get that information to us at the NWS.
For more information, please see our spotter training calendar (updated in January or February), send a e-mail to Jody James, our Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) or call us at 745-4260.
