This Groundhog Day, you can skip the rodent meteorology and learn something practical about the weather.
The National Weather Service in Sacramento will hold its third online weather spotter training session Thursday.
In the past several years, the NWS has more than tripled its army of volunteer spotters from 200 to around 700 in Northern California, said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist who conducts the training sessions.
Spotters are people who provide on-the-spot observations about weather conditions – beyond questions of, "How cold is it?"
As a result, the agency is getting a better handle on snow levels, flash-flood conditions, tornadoes, lightning strikes and other potentially dangerous weather conditions around the region.
"It's definitely helping us in our warning process," Kurth said.
Online training started a year ago and has greatly expanded the spotter ranks because people no longer have to drive great distances to attend in-person sessions.
Kurth recalled one spotter drove for hours from Alturas in the Modoc County mountains to get to a training session in Redding.
"We're hoping to expand that more, particularly the less densely populated areas," said Kurth.
For example, there may be plenty of spotters in Folsom or Roseville, but areas such as Placerville or Auburn may be less well covered.
That applies to rural areas of the Valley, too, where tornadoes pop up.
"What we really prize is people in small towns," he said.
Basic spotter trainees learn the difference between a wall cloud, a funnel cloud and a tornado and how wind speeds can be estimated by looking at damage.
With the ranks growing, Kurth anticipates there may be opportunities to do more advanced training for spotters in the coming year.
It's all about keeping people safe.
Spotter information – by phone or through eSpotter, an online system – can be used for fog, wind, storm, flood and travel advisories or warnings.
ONLINE TRAINING
The two-hour spotter training will be online from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday. For more information, go to the website of the Sacramento NWS office at www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto and follow the link near the top to information about online spotter training.
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