55 people attended Saturday’s SkyWarn Weather School in Brownwood. National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist Hector Guererro taught the school, sponsored by Brown County Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES), Brownwood Amateur Radio Club (BARC), Brown County Skywarn, and the National Weather Service in San Angelo. Guererro said the federal government’s mandated cutbacks make it difficult to continue the weather schools, and they have been forced to cut back on the number of schools presented in the district. He said, “Brown County is one of the larger schools and has a very active SkyWarn Program, so the recent cutbacks did not include the Brownwood school. The cutbacks have forced us at the National Weather Service to combine several SkyWarn weather spotter schools into one per centrally-located area”.
Skywarn Weather-Spotters must be certified annually, and are required to attend. The school was open to the public and many from area fire departments, emergency medical responders, and law enforcement also attended. Brown County SkyWarn coordinator Bill Fraser says the area weather spotters are well trained, and updated annually to maintain their certifications. Most are licensed Amateur (Ham) Radio Operators using the latest in communications technology, and employ the Automated Position Reporting System (APRS) to show their exact locations using Global Positioning Satellite systems for location accuracy.
Dale Seaburg, Brownwood Amateur Radio Club (BARC) President said he was pleased with the turnout from several sectors of the community, as well as public service agencies that included law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel.
The San Angelo National Weather Service office county watch area (CWA) extends from the southern panhandle to far west Texas, down to the northern Hill Country and Highland Lakes area, with Brown County the eastern-most county.” Guererro explained the reason trained weather spotters are necessary is because the radar system is hindered by time and distance. The farther a storm system is from San Angelo, the more difficult it is to see what’s happening at the surface level.
“For instance”, Guererro said, “the San Angelo weather radar can only see the atmosphere above six thousand feet in the Brownwood area. Whatever is below that level is unknown until the Weather Spotter reports are received. That’s where our Ham Radio operators come in. These people are a vital link in warning coordination because they have the communications equipment and most have GPS position reporting systems which gives me the exact location of where they are and what they’re seeing at any given time. At the weather office, we can pin-point their location and know exactly what’s happening and where it’s happening. Our Brown County SkyWarn-Certified ham operators are the key to our being accurate in warning coordination for Brown County, which gives me, as the Warning Coordinator, the details I need to alert a particular area of impending inclement weather”. Guererro is a certified NWS Meteorologist, where he’s been for more than 22 years.
(Pictured at top L-R: Bill Fraser, Dale Seaburg, Hector Guererro)
