Weather Spotters

The first thunder storm of the season rolled through here last evening.  I had been listening to the police scanner when the storm reached my county.  When the Weather Bureau issued a severe storm warning, the weather spotters were called out.

If you are at all interested in following storm tracks, the spotters make it kind of interesting.  Here in my county there is one central dispatcher for the weather spotters.  Each spotter has an area of the county that they cover.  They radio in to the dispatcher, sort of like a roll call, to report conditions in their area.  They tell if the lightning is in the clouds or hitting the ground.  They report on wind, rain, hail and anything else they see.  It is one thing to follow a storm on radar, but by listening to the weather spotters, it is easy to tell if anything bad is headed this way.

It wasn't much of a storm this time.  Just a little wind and rain and spotty small hail.  Some, but not much, lightning hit the ground.  I didn't even have to close my windows.

I have always liked to watch a storm.  As a kid, my Dad and I would stand in our front porch and watch the storm clouds roll in.  Unless the weather turned really nasty, we would stay there and watch as long as we could.  Sometimes the lightning displays were spectacular.  And the cloud formations were fascinating.  And it was even more fun to be brave and stand with Dad on the porch, as opposed to cowering in the basement with Mom and sister!

I still like to watch a storm, and if one is headed my way from the west, I can probably be found out on the deck, watching the clouds.