Allen County ham radio group to invite general public to its own spotter class

National Weather Service (NWS)-led SKYWARN® storm spotter training will no longer occur every spring in Allen County, Indiana. A new training rotation developed by the northern Indiana NWS office (IWX) means that the next two sessions in Allen County will occur in the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2021. The Allen County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), however, plans to devote its February 21, 2019 meeting to spotter education, and to invite all interested persons.

Beginning in 2019, IWX will offer 21 spotter training sessions per year, versus the 22 to 26 sessions it previously conducted annually in February, March and April. The new schedule divides the sessions into two seasons; 12 in the spring season and nine in the late summer or early autumn. Autumn sessions will allow IWX to focus on late-season severe weather and winter weather observations.

“While this is a change, it is not a degradation of service,” IWX warning coordination meteorologist Michael Lewis wrote via email.

Lewis encouraged county emergency managers to promote spotter training sessions held in neighboring counties, because the NWS program contains no information that’s specific to any county. For example, Allen County residents who wish to attend an IWX session in the spring of 2019 may travel to Adams, Huntington or Noble County.

Increase in other services led to change

IWX created the new training schedule to provide more balance to the office’s operational workload, according to Lewis. He explained that an increase in the amount of Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) that the office provides to core partners made necessary the workload rebalance. For example, over the past four years, IWX staff members have attended:

• District and sector emergency management meetings (including five Indiana Department of Homeland Security districts, one Ohio sector and one Michigan district)
• Local emergency planning committee (LEPC) meetings (every active county LEPC meeting within the IWX coverage area at least once)
• More than 40 exercises (including full scale, functional, tabletop and discussion based)
• State and International EMA meetings
• Countless other public outreach events throughout the 37 counties within the IWX service area.

County-specific training encouraged

In addition to promoting spotter training in neighboring counties, Lewis encouraged county emergency managers to conduct county-specific storm spotter training during “off years.” During such events, emergency managers could provide basic information about county-specific warning operations, such as outdoor warning siren policies, notification services, activation procedures, sheltering instructions, reporting methods, etc. To support such county-specific training, IWX will make available recorded spotter training segments (four- to six-minute videos) from the most current version of its spotter program.

In a November email to Allen County ARES, a representative of the Allen County Office of Homeland Security (ACOHS, Allen County’s emergency management agency) indicated that the office had no plans to conduct the suggested county-specific storm spotter training.

ARES to host training

Allen County ARES wants to give its members, other hams and members of the general public an opportunity to receive spotter education before the next spring severe weather season. For that reason, ARES plans to devote its Feb. 21 meeting to spotter education and to welcome all interested persons, including hams who are not ARES members and non-hams.

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library. The agenda is still being developed, but ARES leaders plan to present some of the information themselves based on NWS materials. ARES has also invited others from the community to provide presentations, including ACOHS, the City/County Consolidated Communication Partnership (our local 911 public safety dispatching center), and broadcast meteorologists from all four Fort Wayne TV newsrooms.

At the time of this writing, two TV stations have agreed to send meteorologists and the 911 dispatch center has agreed send a representative to discuss how severe weather affects its operations.

Mark Feb. 21 on your calendar and watch this blog for more information.