More than 80 area residents Tuesday night became additional eyes for the National Weather Service in Mower County.

Wednesday, March 22, 2000

More than 80 area residents Tuesday night became additional eyes for the National Weather Service in Mower County.

The weather service’s LaCrosse, Wis., office, which serves the region, sent a team of meteorologists to the Mower County Senior Center to train residents and emergency personnel in the art of storm spotting. Persons taking Tuesday’s annual two-and-a-half-hour class learned to recognize different types of storm clouds and how they can relay severe weather information to emergency personnel and the weather service.

Cory King, a meteorologist with the LaCrosse weather forecast office, presented the program to prospective weather spotters. In addition to teaching the spotters the facts they need to know to report severe weather, he stressed that spotters also need to play it safe in the face of intensifying storms.

"We’d rather everyone not grab their camcorders, but go to their basements," King said.

Among those attending King’s class were police reserves, Austin and Brownsdale firefighters and members of the Austin Amateur Radio Club. Residents with an interest in serving as weather spotters also attended.

Dave Carr of the Olmstead County Emergency Operations Center told attendees during an early session prior to the class about a new Web-based radar system that will offer local emergency managers access to various Doppler radar products. A computer at the Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center will be able to access the Web server at the Olmstead EOC to check the radar pictures. The radar information will offer information in tracking the path and severity of storms.

Carr added that KXLT Channel 47 will be installing a Doppler radar system on the National Weather Service’s former tower in Rochester and the products from the Doppler will be made available on the Web site this summer for emergency managers. Also, spotter reports from the region will be filed on the Web site in an effort to move reports from paper to an electronic form.

The storm spotting class is a precursor to Severe Weather Awareness Week in Minnesota from April 10-14. Tornado drills will be carried out statewide on April 13, King said.

The storm spotters Tuesday night were trained to spot and report the following to the weather service: tornadoes, funnel clouds, rotating wall clouds, hail, wind gusts in excess of 40 mph, shelf clouds preceding thunderstorms, flash flooding, mudslides, excessive rainfall and damage to trees or buildings.