Subject: Alachua Co. SKYWARN - Press Release: Severe Weather Spotter Training Class PRESS RELEASE ALACHUA COUNTY SKYWARN SEVERE WEATHER SPOTTER TRAINING CLASS Alachua County SKYWARN will be holding a SEVERE WEATHER SPOTTER TRAINING CLASS... Date : July 15th, 2004 (Thursday) Time : 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Where: Alachua County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) 2621 SE Hawthorne Road (Map available at http://alachuaskywarn.org/classes.html) Instructor: Angie Enyedi Asst. Warning Coordination Meteorologist NWSFO-Jacksonville Sponsored by: Alachua County SKYWARN, the Alachua County Office of Emergency Management, and the National Weather Service. NOTE: The EOC building also houses the Combined Communications Center, and is sometimes referred to that, interchangeably. DESCRIPTION SKYWARN is a program sponsored by the National Weather Service and is designed to train the public on how to spot certain dangerous signs of severe weather, and how to report them to the NWS and local Emergency Management. Spotter reports aid officials in fine tuning any necessary watches and warnings that may be issued to the public, by allowing them to be customized to indicate current ongoing threats within particular storms. Spotters also allow "ground truthing" for the Weather Service, allowing them to "see," at the ground level, what the radar cannot see in your area due to the curvature of the earth. In so doing, they provide a valuable public service. This will be a COMBINED Basic- and Advanced-level class. Anyone may attend. There are no age limits. This class is offered to the public free of charge. So invite your friends! However, due to limited seating, pre-registration is required. Let us know if you plan to attend the Basic, Advanced, or both. AGENDA The class should last about three hours, starting at 6:00 PM and lasting until about 9:00 PM. There will be a 15 minute break between the Basic and Advanced portions of the class. Those needing to take only the Advanced may show up at this point, if they wish. However, in order to take the Advanced portion, a Basic-level class must have been taken SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE NWS-JAX COUNTY WARNING AREA within the past two years. (Training obtained from other NWS Field Offices does not count.) The Instructor will give a presentation involving mostly slides - with some clips from the video STORMWATCH - to aid her in her presentation. There will be a short break halfway through the presentation. At the completion of the presentation, the Instructor will hold a short question and answer session going over what was just discussed. Attendees will then be asked to sign a couple of roster sheets - one for EOC officials and one for the NWS. They will then be assigned a "spotter ID number," and given a nice, laminated "spotter ID card" with contact information on the back, which the new spotters can then use to make their severe weather reports to the NWS with. She'll also have plenty of SKYWARN bumper stickers available for spotters. I. Basic 1. The NWS 2. Storm Spotters (video as well ~ 30 min) 3. Thunderstorm Life Cycle 4. Types of Severe Weather (15-Minute Break) II. Advanced 1. Ingredients for Severe Weather 2. Types of Thunderstorms 3. Identifying Severe Storms 4. Tornado Formation III. Quick Review IV. Additions to the NWS-JAX website SUGGESTED ANNOUNCEMENT SCRIPT (for use with radio spots and/or online and/or TV "community bulletin board" type announcements) "Alachua County SKYWARN will be holding a Severe Weather Storm Spotter Training Class on Thursday, July 15th, at 6:00 PM, at the Alachua Co. Emergency Operations Center located at the corner of S.E. Hawthorne Road and S.E. 27th Street. Learn how to spot the dangerous signs of severe weather and how to report them to the Weather Service and to local officials. This class is offered as a free public service by Alachua County SKYWARN, the Alachua Co. Office of Emergency Management, and the National Weather Service. There are no age limits, and anyone may attend - so invite your friends and family. You'll learn how to provide a valuable public service that could very well save lives when severe weather strikes! For more information about Alachua County SKYWARN, visit their web site at "www.AlachuaSkywarn.org" FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Related web pages: o Alachua County SKYWARN http://www.alachuaskywarn.org o Alachua Co. Office of Emergency Management http://www.alachua-em.org o National Weather Service. - Jacksonville Office http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jax/cgi-bin/master.pl?suite=home CONTACT INFO Todd L. Sherman Coordinator, Alachua County SKYWARN Tel: (352) 379-4911 E-mail: skywarn@fireline.org Dave Donnelly Alachua Co. Asst. Emergency Coordinator EOC : (352) 264-6500 Desk: (352) 264-6520 E-mail: ddonnell@co.alachua.fl.us Angie Enyedi Asst. Warning Coordination Meteorologist National Weather Service Office - Jacksonville Tel: (904) 741-4011, then 223 E-mail: angie.enyedi@noaa.gov ### cc: