Meteorologists from the Memphis NWS office presented a two-hour SKYWARN spotter training session via Google Hangouts and you can see a recording of the entire thing on YouTube.

The recording provides useful and interesting information, but viewers should not assume that their local NWS offices will recognize the program as official spotter training. The northern Indiana NWS office does not, according to Michael Lewis, that office’s warning coordination meteorologist.

At the time of this writing, the only ways to be recognized by the northern Indiana office as a trained spotter are to attend an in-person training session sanctioned by that office or complete  MetEd online training, Lewis said.

Of course, taking training recognized by your local office matters only if you wish to on that office’s official list of trained spotters, which can help improve the credibility of any reports you make to that office. In my experience, the northern Indiana NWS office accepts reports from anyone, trained or not. But reports that come from spotters they recognize has having received official training probably have a greater effect on meteorological decision making.