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Skywarn is a program initiated by the National Weather Service which trains and uses individuals who volunteer their time to report ground truth information during a weather event. SkyWarn utilizes Amateur Radio operators heavily, since we have a medium of passing information very rapidly. Other SkyWarn spotters consist of concerned citizens, emergency management personnel, aircraft pilots, mariners, truck drivers, and other public safety officials.
What is a SkyWarn Net?
In general, a SkyWarn Net is called when an alert, such as a Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued by the NWS. In Ottawa County, the Net Control Operator is a volunteer with Ottawa County Emergency Management. Net Control keeps traffic flowing on the air, which frees up other members of the team to perform other tasks, such as relay reports, or go mobile and do rapid damage assessment.
SkyWarn Nets are usually run at one of three levels:
Condition Green: Be advised of rapidly changing weather conditions. No formal net is in progress, and the frequency is still open for normal traffic. Longer pauses are requested between transmissions.
Condition Yellow: Severe Weather is imminent. A formal net is now running. All stations are requested to keep traffic weather related.
Condition Pink: Condition pink is intermediate between condition yellow and condition red. Net Control can activate condition pink when the net becomes overwhelmingly busy. In condition pink, net participants are requested to keep their transmitions as brief as possible, and regarding weather related traffic only.
Condition Red: Severe Weather is in progress. A formal net is in progress, and all stations are requested to keep transmissions brief, with only severe weather or emergency trafffic.
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