SkyWarn For USS Powhatan NCC-1967 Region One Chesapeake,Virginia

Welcome To The USS Powhatan NCC-1967

Part Of Star Fleet Interntional Region One Chesapeake,Virginia

< ---Note this Photo of Storm is a Bravenet Stock Photo

USS Powhatan NCC-1967 attended Sky Warn training class May 14,2008 and was Hosted by our Own Ruth Bigio and National Oceanic and Admispheric Administration. It is important to track and spot severe weather before it happens. The USS Powhatan are not stom chasers but storm spotters.

Define by National and Admispheric Administration sky warn is defined as

"SKYWARN is a concept developed in the early 1970s that was intended to promote a cooperative effort between the National Weather Service and communities. The emphasis of the effort is often focused on the storm spotter, an individual who takes a position near their community and reports wind gusts, hail size, rainfall, and cloud formations that could signal a developing tornado. Another part of SKYWARN is the receipt and effective distribution of National Weather Service information.

The organization of spotters and the distribution of warning information may lie with the National Weather Service or with an emergency management agency within the community. This agency could be a police or fire department, or often is an emergency management/service group (what people might still think of as civil defense groups). This varies across the country however, with local national weather service offices taking the lead in some locations, while emergency management takes the lead in other areas.

SKYWARN is not a club or organization, however, in some areas where Emergency Management programs do not perform the function, people have organized SKYWARN groups that work independent of a parent government agency and feed valuable information to the National Weather Service. While this provides the radar meteorologist with much needed input, the circuit is not complete if the information does not reach those who can activate sirens or local broadcast systems.

SKYWARN spotters are not by definition "Storm Chasers". While their functions and methods are similar, the spotter stays close to home and usually has ties to a local agency. Storm chasers often cover hundreds of miles a day. The term Storm Chaser covers a wide variety of people. Some are meteorologists doing specific research or are gathering basic information (like video) for training and comparison to radar data. Others chase storms to provide live information for the media, and others simply do it for the thrill.

Storm Spotting and Storm Chasing is dangerous and should not be done without proper training, experience and equipment.

The National Weather Service conducts spotter training classes across the United States, and your local National Weather Service office should be consulted as to when the next class will be held."

National Oceanic and Admispheric Administraion simple maps that are upto date can be found at http://www.skywarn.org/ if you are interesting in tracking and spotting storms. Please do this in the safety of your own home. We do not need Storm Chasers and Storm Spotters hurt. If need to report in an emergency always follow these guidelines

Skywarn Reporting

Reporting Format

Identify yourself:
- provide your CALL and your location including, if possible, the nearest large intersection or landmark
What have you seen:
- Wall cloud, Tornado, large hail, flooding, etc
Where you saw it:
- The direction and distance from where you saw it.
  - (example: 3 miles south of town)
When you saw it:
- Make sure you remember exactly what time observation occured
What was it doing:
- Describe the storms direction and speed of travel, size and intensity, and destructiveness. (also include any amount of uncertainty as needed. (i.e., "funnel cloud; no debris visible at surface but too far away to be certain it is on the ground))"

Reporting Criteria

Critical Priority

Any tornado, waterspout, or funnel cloud
Wall cloud (especially if any rotation is seen)
Widespread wind damage
- Trees, power lines, structural damage
Flash flooding
- streams, creeks, rivers or dam breaks
- severe street, urban, or basement flooding
  - 1+ inches in an hour in urban areas
  - 2+ inches in 3 hours in urban areas

High Priority

At least penny sized hail (0.75 inch)
Any thunderstorm wind gusts of 58 mph (50 knots) or greater
Poor-drainage urban flooding which makes roads impassable
- Distiction between poor drainage flooding and overflowing streams is crutial!
Snowfall: 1+" in an hour or less

Moderate Priority

Any size hail less than 0.75" in diameter (smaller than a penny)
Thunderstorm wind gusts of 40-57 mph or downed small tree branches
River or stream rises to near bank full
Rainfall
- Event total
Snowfall
- When accumulations reach 2", 4", and 6"
- Event total
Ice jam locations
Freezing rain or freezing drizzle
Change in the type of precipitation (example: snow to rain)

We value your severe weather spotting and appreciate your timely reports. Reports can be made from any location: home, work, school, on the road, etc. However, we do request that you spot safely...please don't risk injury (or worse) to provide us with your information. Please relay your reports as soon as it is safe to do so.

REMEMBER...the first rule of severe weather spotting and emergency communications is to protect yourself. Insure your own safety first; then and only then, communicate your observation.

Anyone who is interested in weather can also visit myweatherlive at http://www.myweatherlive.com/. There are blogs and meteorologist there members can post too. Note the radars and maps at myweatherlive sometimes are not as uptodate as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When viewing weather charts and maps please refer first to the maps and charts on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at http://www.skywarn.org/ and then view myweatherlive,your local online televison radars,weatherunderground, yahoo weather, the weather channel online (etc)..