Area residents learn to spot stormy weather

NWS offers basic weather spotter class

By RACHEL LANE, rlane@newsandsentinel.com
BELPRE — In the near future, storm warnings may arrive thanks to one of the 50 people attending the weather spotter class.

The National Weather Service in Charleston offered a basic weather spotter class at the Belpre Fire Department’s training and conference room Wednesday evening. The class was the first offered in Washington County in almost 10 years, said Mike Cullums, director of the Washington County 911.

“I thought we’d have a good turnout,” Cullums said. “We’ve had a lot of weather and with modern technology, people can see weather. With the class, they can understand what they’re seeing.”

He said the class is a good way to find out if weather myths are fact or fiction.

“It’s really the metal frame of the car spreading out the lightning charge” that protects people from lightning, not the rubber tires,” said Fred McMullen, meteorologist and teacher of the class.

Even if the sky has no clouds, people can still be struck by lightning, he said.

“It can strike 10 to 15 miles ahead of a storm,” said Daniel Deem, 9, of Belpre. He attended the class because he likes being outdoors and storms, specifically hurricanes.

“They’re really powerful,” Deem said.

Alan Queen of Belpre said he thought the class offered good information.

“I love lightning storms,” Queen said.

Several years ago, he went hiking at night and climbed a fire tower.

“I could feel the air tingling, so we got out of there fast,” Queen said. The tower was struck by lightning about 10 minutes later.

“I could have used this years ago” when taking trips on a river in Missouri, said Betty Camp. She often camped overnight along the river.

“We had a couple of close calls with flash floods,” she said. “The water was very powerful. You couldn’t help but be afraid.”

Tiffany Miller, 11, of Davisville said she didn’t want to attend the class at first.

“I thought it was kind of cool... once I got into it,” Miller said.

Her mother, Tammy Miller, took her daughter to the class.

“She’s scared of storms,” Tammy Miller said.

Tiffany Miller said she thought learning how to identify storms earlier, giving herself more time to prepare, would help lessen her fear of storms.

“They’re teaching kids (in area schools) to prepare for tornadoes. I think this would help even more” to have a weather spotter type class in the school, Tammy Miller said.

McMullen said he wanted to educate people so they can help the weather service and the community.

“Our radar hits about 8,000 feet up. It can’t tell us what’s going on on the ground,” he said. Weather spotters “are a good way to get the information to us.”

The class was the largest he has seen in the eight years he has been teaching them.

“They see a lot of severe weather in this area,” McMullen said. “After severe weather, more people attend the classes.”

He said the MOV has some of the most severe weather the Charleston center monitors.

McMullen and Cullums said they hope to arrange an advanced weather spotters class.