On January 3, 2000 WARN spotters were activated by the National Weather Service at about 3:30PM EST. The Cincinnati area was under a rare January tornado watch. As storms moved through, little in the way of severe weather was reported. But, the rain refused to stop. The focus quickly turned from severe weather to flooding.
As it turned out, the weather spotter nets were active for about 5 1/2 hours. While the radars were showing heavy rain, only the eyewitness reports of flooded roadways confirmed that the heavy rains were indeed causing some problems and how bad they were. All the numbers are not in, but we know many people called in reports. Thanks for your assistance. Thanks also to Steve Lewis – N8TFD, Bob Kaegi – KB8TPC, and Dave Stuart KB0SLY for putting in several man/hours relaying important information to the National Weather Service.
We normally don’t expect to be activated at this time of year, but when the NWS calls, we will bring up the nets. Today also proves that our spotters in the field are also ready. Of course everyone had charged batteries since Y2K had peaked everyone’s interest in preparedness.
It shouldn’t be too long before we start sending out information on year 2000 spotter training courses.