Tom Warner documents the powerful beauty of lightning with an array of optical and electromagnetic sensors. He often uses a Vision Research ‘Phantom’ high-speed camera.

Warner is a Ph.D student at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, in Rapid City. He studies atmospheric sciences with a specialty in lightning research. “Lightning is one of nature’s most spectacular phenomena,” says Warner. “I want to understand how lightning behaves.”

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Feb. 9, 1870: Feds Get on Top of the Weather

1870: President Ulysses S. Grant signs a bill creating what we now call the National Weather Service. Forecasting models were simple but generally effective.

It had been obvious for centuries that weather in North America generally moves from west to east, or southwest to northeast. But other than looking upwind, that knowledge was little help in predicting the weather until you could move weather reports downwind faster than the weather itself was moving.

The telegraph finally made that possible. The Smithsonian Institution in 1849 began supplying weather instruments to telegraph companies. Volunteer observers submitted observations to the Smithsonian, which tracked the movement of storms across the country. Several states soon established their own weather services to gather data.

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The North Texas SKYWARN™ Spotter Training Schedule for 2010 has been published. Be sure to check the schedule often for updates and additions.

The Texas Thunderbolt - Spotter Newsletter is published from the NWS Preparedness and Storm Spotter Information page.

Spotters and volunteers should check the following information regularly during possible severe weather for updated information.

• Emergency Manager Briefing Information
• Fort Worth NWS
• Storm Prediction Center
  • Overview
  • Convective Outlooks
  • Current Convective Watches
  • Current Mesoscale Discussions
  • Severe Weather Event Summaries
  • Mesoscale Analysis
  • Fire Weather Forecasts
  • National Weather Hazards

Audio recordings of some EchoLink and IRLP Radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) contacts are linked below. Next year we'll try to provide HF and other recordings as well.

We have created a log of contacts with a link to display a QSL card for printing. Click on the Read More to display the QSL Log page.

Bobette has published some photos from Field Day at the Fort Worth NWS office.

The Ft. Worth NWS SKYWARN Team operate multiple amateur radio systems, including RoIP systems such as EchoLink and IRLP. Our RoIP radio systems are normally dedicated to direct connections with remote SKYWARN spotter radio stations in affected areas during weather events. We may limit incoming connections by use of an “allow list” of authorized stations. This helps us manage connections and limited network bandwidth during weather events.