I want to share another link to a Facebook page that covers Greene County, Missouri.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Green...43603205708928

This page is totally run by volunteers. None of them are paid. The senior administrator Patti Flowers Palmer started this page when she saw the need to provide a good source of current weather information on social media. Patti and her husband have long been National Weather Service trained storm spotters. They have also done some storm chasings. During the Joplin, MO tornados both were on site providing the National Weather Service direct reports from the ground via mobile Ham Radio on the changing conditions.

Due to my diabetes and weird sleeping hours due to the pain I was just looking at Facebook late at night. Plus I was also on the lookout for bad storms that might effect my folks in Preston, MO. And I am kind of a weather nut anyway. Weather effects everything on a farm period! If you not thinking about your cows having calves in a snow bank, your thinking about if there will be enough rain in the spring to make hay for next winters feed supply!

Well one night I made some comments on how impressed I was the Greene County, MO Skywarn's Facebook page. Patti and I started PM'ing each other. She found out that I has some extra time and I would be willing to run the page during odd hours. Patti provided some training for me, and I went back to the NWS to update my spotter training. I am now a administrator for the page. During times that storms are moving towards and hitting Greene County, MO, weather spotters are dispatched to different areas of the county. They make their storm reports right into a Ham Radio net control run by Greene County Skywarn. All of these reports are turned into the NWS office here in Springfield, MO.

So when you hear on a TV or Radio station that the National Weather Service is reporting a tornado on the ground confirmed by spotters it could be a volunteer spotter like the group in Greene County Skywarn or law enforcement which are all also trained weather spotters. The Weather Service Radar does a great job of showing tornadoes but they don't always show everything. Sometimes tornados are rain wrapped and don't show up good on radar. Nothing beats a set of human eyes on the ground confirming radar.

So if your into Facebook check to see if there is a local Skywarn group in your area! You will sure learn a lot more about weather from some really great folks! And if you have the time offer to do some volunteer work for them.

Like I have said above in this Thread always have a backup plan for information about the weather in your area. You may never need it but if you do you can rest peacefully at night.