Skywarn Training Schedule

NWS Binghamton SKYWARN and Webinar Schedule

NWS Binghamton Spring 2025 Basic and Advanced Skywarn Training Schedule. *It is recommended, but not required, for you to have attended a Basic Skywarn Class before attending an Advanced Class.

Please Review this Privacy Act Statement as part of signing up for a Skywarn (which includes collecting your contact information). This will also be briefly shown at the Skywarn. 

Privacy Act Statement

Authority:  The collection of this information is authorized under 5 U.S.C. 301(Departmental regulations), 5 USC 552a (Records maintained on individuals); 15 U.S.C. 1512 (Powers and duties of Department), and 44 U.S.C. 2904 (General responsibilities for records management).

Purpose: NOAA collects this information for the purpose of 1) obtaining an agreement with a cooperative observer, storm warning displayman, flood warning distributor, spotter volunteer, etc., 2) with an individual, company, organization to provide observations to be taken by its personnel at one or more locations, 3) agreement to any material change in terms of agreement with cooperative personnel already rendering service to the Weather Service, such as adding river observations at a climatological station, etc., and/or agreement for installation of instrumental equipment when the property upon which it is proposed to install instrumental equipment is controlled by an individual or organization other than the individual or organization responsible for the personal service.

Information collected: May collect, but not limited to; first and last name, home address/city, home telephone number, email address, Spotter ID, radio call sign if applicable, county, elevation, latitude/longitude, what hours a spotter can be contacted for severe weather reports, possession of a rain gauge, anemometer, thermometer, snow stick, or weather station, Twitter account/Facebook or any other social media account information, and/or last time attended spotter class.

NOAA Routine Uses: NOAA will use this information to formalize user eligibility and to contact the user when needed regarding weather-related activities. Disclosure of this information is permitted under the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. Section 552a) to be shared among NOAA staff for work-related purposes. Disclosure of this information is also subject to all of the published routine uses as identified in the Privacy Act System of Records Notice Commerce/NOAA-11, Contact Information for Members of the Public Requesting or Providing Information Related to NOAA’s Mission.

Disclosure: Furnishing this information is voluntary; however, failure to provide accurate information may delay or prevent the individual from completing the agreement and thus from being available for contact when needed for voluntary weather–related activities.

Having technical difficulties with the web page: e-mail: Ron.Murphy@noaa.gov

For virtual sessions, you are not required to give all the information on the registration form N/A can be used.

You can also go through an on-line recorded SKYWARN class for basic severe, advanced severe, flood or winter. Once you complete these trainings, email your location name and contact information to Mitchell.Gaines@noaa.gov. This is only for New York and Pennsylvania counties within our area of coverage. If you are viewing these videos outside of NY and PA, please follow up with your local National Weather Service office.  While not included in the videos, information on HAM radio networks across the region is listed below.  Also, we do not give out spotter ID's. 

• National:  Skywarn Spotter Training via the COMET Program 2 hour course
• Local:  May 2023 NWS Binghamton Basic Severe Skywarn (~80 minutes of video)
• Local:  June 2023 NWS Binghamton Advanced Severe Skywarn (~ 2 hour video) 
• Local:  December 2023 NWS Binghamton Winter Skywarn (~1 hr 50 min video)

About SKYWARN: Our program is a year round program.  Our goal is to train you how to accurately report severe weather to us, ranging from snowfall measurements, to severe weather (hail, wind, tornadoes, flooding).  We offer a Basic SKYWARN and an Advanced SKYWARN in our spring/early summer season, and a Basic Winter SKYWARN in the fall.  Flood SKYWARN is done throughout the year based on interest.  Anyone is welcome to attend the Basic SKYWARN classes, there is no age requirement and you do not need to have had prior training.  For our Advanced classes we require that you have attended (1) of our previous SKYWARN classes in the past 3 years.  This can include either our spring or winter version.

SKYWARN Links and Brochures 

• YouTube Spotter Training Playlist
• There is a BGM SKYWARN discussion group now online! For more information contact Mitchell Gaines. 
• National SKYWARN
• Weather Spotter Field Guide. A Guide to Being a SKYWARN Spotter
• SKYWARN Recognition Day
• Cloud Chart
• Wind Speed Estimate Chart (Beaufort Wind Force Scale)
• Severe Weather Definitions (hail sizes, what is a severe storm?, etc)
• Weather Glossary

Safety

• Cold
• Heat
• Hurricane
• Flood
• Lightning
• Thunderstorm
• Tornadoes
• Winter
• Backpacking/Camping Safety (will need to right click and rotate to view image correctly)

Misc

• Cooperative Observer Program
• Weather Ready Nation Ambassadors

Amateur Radio

• Amateur Radio, Find your club 
• HAM Radio Repeaters (Binghamton Area) 
• RAGS (Syracuse area)
• HAM Radio Repeaters by state