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KE5ZRT
03-13-2011, 06:35 PM
Scouting for Meteorologists is an annual outreach program sponsored by the National Weather Service in Amarillo for Girl Scouts of the Texas Oklahoma Plains and the Boy Scouts of the Golden Spread Council who are interested in weather as a career or hobby. Scouts are invited to become “Meteorologists for a Day” and to meet and interact with meteorologists from different segments of the career field such as television, emergency management, storm spotters, and the National Weather Service.
Scouts will have an opportunity to:


Generate a forecast or a warning
Participate in a severe weather simulation
Create a brief TV weather broadcast
Provide weather support during a emergency incident
Experiment with weather models
Learn the concepts of storm spotting and Amateur (Ham) Radio
Prepare for a career in meteorology

Where: National Weather Service 1900 English Road, Amarillo, TX, 79108


When: Saturday March 26th, 2011 1300-1700


Last year us SKYWARN Storm Spotters set up a booth in our corner of the NWS office and distributed amateur radio literature and gave an informative presentation to the scouts to show them what we do. We also gave them a chance to sit in a real live storm spotter truck, and play with the lightbar, wear hardhats and talk on a ham radio. Second to the weather balloon launch, the storm spotter presentation was a real favorite for the scouts. this is a great opportunity for us to provide a community service, support the scouts and the National Weather Service, and an opportunity to spark some potential interest in the amateur radio hobby for some of these kids who may be future community service volunteers.


We’re thinking about letting the kids wear hard-hats and ARES vests while throwing ping-pong balls at the truck as others sit inside the truck to simulate a hail storm! We’ll need a lot of ping-pong balls though.

To help with the Amateur (Ham) Radio/SKYWARN portion of this event, please Send me some mail! ([email protected])

KE5ZRT
03-28-2011, 08:40 AM
Only a few scouts showed up to the event, but the ones that did, really had a good time! Here's a link to a video of me reporting a simulated hail storm as the kids threw plastic golf balls at me, and also some photos of the event.

http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad106/tornado-alley-rats/NWSscouting2011/