GRAY, Maine — The National Weather Service (NWS) is offering free SKYWARN weather spotter training courses in Maine.
What does that mean? It means you could become an official trained spotter with the NWS.
I went to the NWS office in Gray to speak with Warning Coordination Meteorologist Donald Dumont to learn more about these classes.
"Our goal is to get a weather spotter in every single town," Dumont said.
The NWS only has two offices in Maine, one in Gray and one in Caribou, so the more spotters they have across the state, the better.
Dumont said trained spotters are important because they are the eyes and ears on the ground.
"We're meteorologists, we look at weather data. We have tools, we have satellite, we can see where the storms are, maybe how tall they are. We have radar, we can estimate the hail size or if the storm is rotating, but that's really all we can do," he explained. "We can look at our information and estimate what's going on out there."
This is why trained weather spotters are so important. They can see what is happening in real time, and report that back to the NWS. That information comes to us here at NEWS CENTER Maine as well.
"They're telling us the impacts, what is happening in the community on the ground. For example, large hail. Our radar might estimate and say there's nickel-sized hail, but maybe its actually ping-pong sized hail, so there could be significant damage happening to vehicles and we're missing it," Dumont said. "So that report will tell us, we'll update our warning, and then maybe the next town from the storm can get their vehicles into their garage and save their car."
Do you need any prior training or experience? Nope! Dumont said anybody can come to the training course. The more the merrier!
He said they have different courses depending on the season. The spring class focuses on thunderstorms while the fall class sticks to the snow.
They'll teach you Weather 101. You'll learn the basics of how radar works, how storms develop, how to measure hail, etc. Since this is the Spring class, you'll dive further into thunderstorm development and flooding issues.
If you'd like to learn more about the class, check out their website here for more details, class times, and how to register online.