These live interactive training sessions are conducted by a NWS meteorologist and available to you at no cost via your computer, or by using the GoToMeeting app on your smartphone or tablet.
The program is made up of thousands of volunteers who attend regular training and then scan the skies of their communities identifying and reporting critical storm information.
The effects of severe weather are felt every year by many Americans. Real-time storm reports, combined with Doppler radar data, are critical for issuing timely and accurate severe weather warnings. While the main role of a storm spotter is to be their community's first line of defense against dangerous storms, they also provide important information to NWS warning forecasters who make critical warning decisions.
Spotters provide the NWS ground-truth information, such as hail size, wind speed, tornado development, and local damage. These reports can directly help the National Weather Service perform our primary mission, to save lives and property.
The National Weather Service always prioritizes safety and will never "deploy" Skywarn spotters. The form below allows people to register as a new spotter, or update their previous registration information for the Skywarn Spotter program with NWS Green Bay. The routine act of simply driving a vehicle is probably the most dangerous activity storm spotters engage in. When you take the normal everyday risks associated with driving, and add to that the additional risks storm spotters face, such as driving in bad weather, being distracted by the storm, using the radio or cell phone, etc, it becomes apparent that mobile spotters need to take extra care to be safe.
