Arkansas "hams" include the Internet in their emergency communications plan

Amateur Radio operators are used to providing weather observations over the airwaves during severe weather. But one group in Arkansas has incorporated the Internet to help spread important and possibly life-saving information.

The Central Arkansas Ultra-High Frequency Group (www.cauhf.org) is using a new tool called “Warn I.M.” to share information in real-time with officials at the National Weather Service, local governments and the media. The tool allows Skywarn certified weather spotters to submit weather observations and gives them access to a map of the state showing the latest radar imagery from the National Weather Service. The application also plots each of the participants on the map, allowing officials to see where their assets in the field are located.

The “Warn I.M.” had its first test when a line of storms reaching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes swept through Arkansas on Saturday, bringing damaging winds and heavy rain to most of the state. Many individuals logged into the “Warn I.M.” including several weather spotters, at least one Chief Meteorologist from a local media outlet, officials from the National Weather Service and the Arkansas Department of Health. During the weather event Ham radio operators were able to relay important information from others into the “Warn I.M.”.

John Nordlund (AD5FU), Arkansas Section Emergency Coordinator, said, “As emergency communicators, Ham radio is one of our most valuable tools. But it shouldn’t be our only tool.”

Since media outlets and government agencies usually monitor several Ham radio frequencies at once for severe weather reports, it can be easy to miss an important announcement. The “Warn I.M.” makes it a little easier to ensure that Arkansans are ready when threatening storms approach.

But Amateur Radio operators aren’t ditching their radios. Joshua Carroll (N5JLC), Arkansas Section Assistant Public Information Coordinator, says that this program is meant to augment radio communications, not replace them. Carroll said, “Luxuries like Internet-access and electricity often become unavailable during severe weather. That’s the reason a lot of us became ‘Hams’: to assist with emergency communication when all else fails.”

Skywarn is a program of the National Weather Service (www.weather.gov/skywarn) that is open to anyone with an interest in public service and access to any method of communication.

WarnIM frequently asked questions

Since we recently opened the CAUHF WarnIM for Open Registration I've received several questions that I thought I should share.

1. Why does the map get blurry when zomming in?
   The radar and county lines on the map get "blurry" when you zoom aren't meant to be used this way. That are bitmap images, so when you zoom in, you will eventually see the pixels that comprise the image. When this happens on digital photos and images, this is called being "pixelated".
   
   
2. How often does the radar update?
   The radar will refresh every 55 seconds on the map, but the National Weather Service only updates the source image every 10 minutes.
   
   
3. My pin on the map is close to me, but not exactly right. Why?
   The locations of the pins on the map are encoded into latitude and longitude coordinates by Google's mapping API (a process called "geocoding"). This process will get the location pretty close, but isn't perfect. If you insist on it being more precise, you can email your exact position (in decimal latitude and longitude) to N5JLC.
   

New weather conference server online!

We have a new weather conference server for "off-the-air" emergency communication. You can find the Skywarn Instant Messenger by visiting http://tools.cauhf.org/cauhf/warnim.