•high water areas
•downed power lines
•other emergency conditions that affect life or property
Listening to Skywarn broadcasts makes it easy to quickly find out about and prepare for inclement weather conditions in your immediate area, even before your local NOAA weather broadcast and local TV or radio station can announce them.
Enter the local Skywarn frequency for your area into Channel 200 on your scanner, then listen to Skywarn first when severe weather threatens.
Listen to NOAA: for weather alerts and warnings, watch box notices, and weather forecasts
Listen to Skywarn: to hear trained observers in your vicinity call in official reports to a "net control" station who relays those reports to NOAA and other emergency agencies.
If you tune to a Skywarn frequency when the Skywarn net is not active, you may hear nothing or you may hear amateur radio operators talking on a local repeater system.
Most importantly, you get Skywarn reports directly from trained observers - that means you get them several minutes before they can be relayed for
37 | Beyond the Basics |