What is a storm spotter?
A. The National Weather Service’s (NWS) primary mission is to save lives and protect property through the issuance of warnings for hazardous weather. The WSR-88D Doppler Weather Radar is a great tool for detecting and tracking potentially severe storms and essentially all strong and violent tornadoes. However, NWS meteorologists also depend on real-time reports from trained spotters to know exactly what is occurring on the ground under a storm. The NWS trains people to identify severe storms and tornadoes and report them via organized communications networks (primarily local and county emergency management, law enforcement and amateur radio). Q. What is the difference between a storm spotter and a storm chaser? A. A storm spotter is volunteer or paid county or municipal employee who is spotting as a community service. Most spotters work as part of an organized network and are in communication with their community or organization, which is in turn in communication with the NWS. Some spo
