National Weather Service To Hold SKYWARN Training At Marshall

The National Weather Service will visit Marshall University’s campus on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. for a SKYWARN training course. 

SKYWARN is a national network that has over 230,000 community volunteers who safeguard their communities by alerting authorities to severe weather. 

This course will have two seminar presenters: Francis Kredensor, lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Charleston, and Kevin Law, West Virginia climatologist and Marshall professor. 

James Leonard, Marshall Geography Department chairman, said the National Weather Service relies heavily on volunteers to report weather events that would otherwise go unnoticed. 

“So, the idea is that the National Weather Service relies on the public to help them forecast and help them understand what the current weather conditions are,” Leonard said. 

The storm spotter training course will teach people how to spot storms and other weather events and when those should be reported to the National Weather Service. 

Leonard said the goal of this training is to equip people with better knowledge of weather events and to help keep the public safe. 

“It’s important for public safety and just general information about events where people might need to prepare,” Leonard said.  

The SKYWARN training will be held on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Memorial Student Center basement. No registration is needed prior to the training. 

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This report was produced thanks to a partnership between Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.