In past years, thunderstorms, tornadoes and lightning cause hundreds of injuries and deaths and billions in property and crop damages. To obtain critical weather information, the National Weather Service (NWS) established SKYWARN® with partner organizations. SKYWARN® is a volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.
OUR MISSION: "The Gaston Regional SKYWARN Team's mission is to provide communication services for the collection of severe weather reports and dissemination of critical weather information in support of the National Weather Service and its mission to protect life and property by improving warning accuracy."
Endorsed by the Gaston County Emergency Management
Endorsed and Supported by GCARS (N4GAS)
Gaston Regional Skywarn is a division of (WG4RC) GASTON RADIO CLUB
The GRST is a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador. Weather-Ready Nation is all about readying your community for extreme weather, waters and climate events. Click the logo above to learn more.
2024 Gaston Regional Skywarn Team Officers
Jason Payseur KQ4GPT-Chief
Tony Jones -NA4TJ - Asst Chief
Ken Williams WA4INO Net Manager
Chris Norman- KQ4DWE Dep Chief
David Bach- Training/Web Manager
Mike Payne- Sgt Chaplain
Covering a region that includes the Charlotte and Gastonia metropolitan area, the Gaston Regional SKYWARN Team was formed in 2020 to help report severe weather to the National Weather Service (NWS) using amateur radio, ZELLO and social media. Members of the Gaston Regional SKYWARN Team, are volunteers, some amateur radio operators that are experienced, trained spotters, and Private Citizens, like yourself. You do not have to be a trained spotter to report severe weather to us but the training is very beneficial.
Regional Coverage Area includes the following counties in North Carolina and South Carolina:
Iredell County
Union County, NC
Reporting Severe Weather
During severe weather nets we are looking for the following types of observed weather events:
Flooding where roads are impassible
Hail of any size
Tornado or funnel cloud
Wind Damage
Rain of two or more inches per hour, or 15 minutes of rain that equals or exceeds .5"
On air, if you report severe weather, please remember to include the following information:
Your call sign, say it and spell it phonetically
Your name
Time of observation
Location where the event was observed. Include City, County and State, then a street and cross street
If you need to submit a storm report to NWS and are unable to make a report via amateur radio, please follow this link.
Links
We are currently Looking to make some additions to the Team. If you are a Weather Buff, and wanna be a part of a fast growing Team complete this form.
TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES:
We offer Training on Basic and Advanced SKYWARN.
We can get you certified as a Licensed HAM operator.
FEMA online incident Command Training.
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/education_training/course/23 BASIC SKYWARN ONLINE
https://training.fema.gov/nims/ NIMS 100,200,700 AND 800 ONLINE CLASSES
https://hamexam.org/ ONLINE STUDY FOR HAM CERTIFICATION
Thank you Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society (W4BFB) and Scott Greene (KC4IRA) for allowing us to use your repeaters for our weekly and severe weather nets!
The Gaston Regional Skywarn® Team is a division of Gaston Radio Club (WG4RC).
"SPOTTING FROM PARADISE"
Mr Raymond Jarvis (KQ4DLN) E.O.W. - 8/28/2023