emergency radio long island REACT

MISSION STATEMENT: 

The Emergency Radio Long Island REACT 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.

The Emergency Radio Long Island REACT Skywarn team are volunteer radio operator liaisons for the  National Weather Service (NWS) Upton NY office. During SKYWARN events, you are reporting information to our team and the NWS warning forecasters. Three goals of a storm spotter are to safely observe, identify and report conditions.

Weather spotters provide what's called "ground truth" to the National Weather Service and emergency weather management. Spotters are needed because, while radar is very good at helping the National Weather Service see what's going on in the upper atmosphere, it's unable to detect what's actually happening on the ground because of the curvature of the Earth. Knowing the "ground truth" about a weather event from the location can be the deciding factor to issue a warning.