Tillman County Emergency Management Director Mike Thornton said they are looking to add additional storm spotters to their team.

“Tillman County Emergency Management is looking for individuals who love the weather and want to make a difference in their communities,” Thornton said. “Our agency is looking to add more storm spotters to our arsenal. Storm spotters play a crucial role in identifying and reporting severe weather conditions.”

Storm spotters act as the eyes on the ground, providing real-time reports of severe weather events to both Emergency Management and Meteorological agencies.

“While advanced weather monitoring technologies such as radar and satellites are indispensable, they have limitations, especially in certain terrains and during rapidly changing weather situations,” Thornton said. “Storm spotters complement these technologies by offering vital ground truth data that can lead to increased warning times for communities.”

According to the National Weather Service, storm spotters provide essential information for all types of weather hazards, but the focus is reporting on severe local thunderstorms. In an average year, the United States experiences more than 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, and more than 1,000 tornadoes.

Local storm spotters enable the National Weather Service to issue more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash floods.

You can find training schedules at https://www. weather.gov/SKYWARN.

You’ll learn things like: Basics of thunderstorm development Fundamentals of storm structure Identifying potential severe weather features Information to report How to report information Basic severe weather safety “Those who are interested in becoming a storm spotter will need to go through two hours of storm spotter training,” Thornton said. “This training is provided by the National Weather Service in Norman and is available in person every spring as well as online. Those who are interested in becoming a storm spotter do not need to have a background in weather, anyone can apply.”

Interested parties can pick up an application at the Tillman County Emergency Management office, 1200 S. Main St. or by emailing tillmanCoEM@ gmail.com, or

by calling 580-335-7549.