Volunteers who watch the sky so forecasters don't have to guess.

Southwest Missouri sits where the Plains meet the Ozarks, and the weather knows it. Supercells cross the Kansas line, squall lines run the length of the region, and the terrain that makes this country beautiful also makes it hard to see what a storm is doing.

That is the gap we exist to fill. Radar is an extraordinary tool, but it measures a storm from far away and from above. It cannot confirm that a funnel has touched down, that hail is piling up in a parking lot, or that a creek has come over a county road. Those are ground truth - and ground truth comes from trained people who are there.

What we actually do

When the National Weather Service issues warnings for our county warning area, our volunteer net control operators activate a severe weather net on the linked N0NWS repeater system. Trained spotters check in and pass reports. Net control relays what matters directly to the forecasters in Springfield, where it can confirm a warning, extend it, or trigger a new one.

Between events we train. We run a weekly net on Tuesday evenings for practice, we hold our own training sessions, and we point people toward the free spotter classes NWS Springfield offers each year. A report is only useful if it is clear, accurate, and delivered without hesitation, and that takes repetition.

The people

We are volunteers. Licensed amateur radio operators, emergency management people, and plain weather-interested neighbors - nobody here is paid, and nobody is on call. Our nets are run entirely by volunteer net control operators who give up their evenings to keep the system sharp.