Weather spotters fill in high-tech gaps

Susan Skorupa

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 | 2:14 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The West gets its share of storms, floods, blizzards, high winds - you name it. But the Western spaces that need watching in nasty weather outnumber the people assigned to the task.

To fill the gaps, the National Weather Service created a network of observers who supplement Doppler radar and weather satellites. Along the eastern Sierra and throughout western Nevada, about 300 people make up the network.

The Skywarn Spotter Program started at least 50 years ago, said Roger Lamoni, warning coordinator meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Reno.

Unlike the amateur weather information gatherers used by television station weather departments and other media, the volunteer Skywarn Spotters don't report temperatures or daily precipitation totals. The Weather Service calls on them when storms require human eyes and ears.

"They are most valuable to us outside the immediate area, in rural areas and places on the fringe of radar coverage," Lamoni said.

During winter, spotters report the effects and movements of winds and blizzards. During summer, they monitor wind, hail, rain and thunderstorms, especially heavy rainfall and damaging winds, tornadoes or funnel clouds.

"We use people from private citizens to law enforcement dispatchers who we can call to find out what officers are seeing on the roads," Lamoni said. "Most of them are available 24 hours a day because if the weather is bad, they're awake anyway."

The Reno bureau's 300 spotters cover an area east of the Sierra Crest from Mono County, Calif., north to Lassen County, Calif.; Surprise Valley and eastern Modoc County, Calif.; all of western Nevada from Mineral County in the south to Washoe County and the Oregon border in the north; and Pershing and Churchil counties.

"We try to get several people in each area so we can reach someone any time. A lot of people work during the day," Lamoni said.

During the New Year's flood of 1997, sheriff's deputies in Mono County, Calif., were pressed into service as storm watchers and were the first to report the washout of U.S. 395 through the Walker River canyon.

"It got to be very critical because every river was flooding from the Susan River to the north to the Walker River in the south," Lamoni said. "A lot of the river gauges were washed away and we were not getting data."

On a more routine basis, Lamoni said he has issued high-wind warnings for the area based on observations by storm spotter George Uebele, southwest of Minden. Uebele often is the first person in the area to report when wind gusts top 58 mph as a weather front approaches.

For their efforts, storm spotters receive a newsletter, a decal, a rain gauge, weather literature and a guide listing items of interest to the Weather Service such as wind speed and the amount of rain fallen in an hour.

The weather services tries to provide training for spotters several times a year.

Storm spotters' data can help with damage assessments and provide information used by other agencies to set insurance rates as well as zoning and building codes.

But it's their observations as severe weather occurs that is most valued.

"Even at the dawn of the millennium with all the high-tech tools, nothing can replace a person who can report what's going on," Lamoni said.

"As a forecaster, I've issued warnings based on a spotter's report. A report can save someone's life."