National Weather Service offers free storm spotter training for flash flood threat in Lake Christine area
Anna Stonehouse / The Aspen Times
EAGLE COUNTY — Forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Grand Junction are planning a special training program to provide assitance to emergency services personnel involved with the potential flash flood threat on the Lake Christine Wildfire burn scar area.
The training session has been scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 8, at the Roaring Fork Conservancy located at 22800 Two Rivers Road in Basalt. The training will begin with a two-hour session on identifying and reporting severe weather events, followed by a half-hour program on accurately measuring precipitation.
Because flash flood potential is greatly increased on burned areas, emergency managers from Eagle and Pitkin Counties are depending on the support of the National Weather Service and volunteer storm spotters to work with them to increase rainfall monitoring and enhance flash flood warning notifications for people living in areas vulnerable to flash flooding near the burn scar.
Volunteer storm spotters perform a valuable role by measuring rainfall and providing timely reports of precipitation, flash flooding or any severe weather event to the NWS forecasters in Grand Junction. Their timely storm reports combined with radar and satellite data will help NWS forecasters to make better warning decisions and to make those decisions more quickly.
A rain gauge will be provided to every household that volunteers to be part of the storm spotter program. Additionally, there may be some storm spotters who might be interested in providing daily precipitation measurements to help monitor cumulative amounts. Daily precipitation measurements are submitted using the online entry form provided by the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow network, which is based at the Colorado Climate Center in Fort Collins.
Anyone interested in attending the Aug. 8 storm spotter and rainfall measurement training in Basalt can simply show up at the time of the training. There is no RSVP required for this event.
More information about the NWS Grand Junction’s storm spotter program can be found at http://www.weather.gov/gjt/spotter.
Support Local Journalism
Support Local Journalism
Readers around Glenwood Springs and Garfield County make the Post Independent’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.
Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.
Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.