National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

The SKYWARN program at Weather Forecast Office (WFO) Romeoville/Chicago consists of spotters who watch the sky during threatening weather conditions. The spotters are emergency management, fire and police, amateur radio operators and trained citizens. They report severe weather such as tornadoes, flash floods and large hail to the WFO by radio or phone.

Our Amateur Radio program consists of amateur radio operators (Hams) who come to the WFO during severe weather and operate radios. They are the National Weather Service Ham Team. The Ham Team communicates with other amateur radio operators who run local networks of storm spotters across north central and northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The Ham Team passes severe weather information from the spotter networks to the meteorologists.

 

We have an amateur radio station and we communicate on most of the amateur radio bands. We operate in the 70 cm Band and 2 meter Band most of the time. We have HF communications, as well. The Ham Team use 70 cm and 2 meter “liaison” repeaters for receiving weather information. Emergency Managers and local spotter network control operators may relay severe weather information via these liaison repeaters to the Ham Team, who are working along side the meteorologists monitoring radar and issuing warnings.

The Repeaters we use are the following:

From time to time, the Ham Team will transmit information about the weather situation on the liaison repeater. This information, from a meteorologist, would be about weather affecting any of the 23 counties in the WFO Chicago warning area. For example, information may be the direction and speed and direction of thunderstorms producing very heavy rainfall or large hail. 

 

The criteria for choosing a liaison repeater are the following;

1. The trustee must be in agreement of the use of the repeater for severe weather operations.
2. The repeater must have reasonably wide coverage in north central and northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana.
3. The repeater must have backup power and be well maintained.

SKYWARN Recognition Day was developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service and the American Radio Relay League. It celebrates the contributions that volunteer SKYWARN spotters and Amateur Radio Operators (Hams) make to the National Weather Service for public safety. Spotters, using radio in the Amateur Radio frequencies report severe weather such as flash floods, tornadoes and damaging wind to local county network control radio operators. The reports are then relayed by radio to the National Weather Service Office here in Romeoville. The meteorologists use these reports in preparing warnings for Illinois and Indiana.

 

SKYWARN Recognition Day is typically held in early December.  Amateur Radio Operators are invited to come out to our office to operate radios, communicating on most of the amateur radio bands.

 
Read about past SKYWARN Recognition Day events here.