We are proud to partner with the following NWS offices:
The NWS Grand Junction office serves 22 counties across western Colorado and eastern Utah, covering diverse terrain from the Colorado Plateau to the San Juan Mountains. This region faces unique weather challenges including flash floods in slot canyons and steep terrain, tornadoes (though relatively rare), severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds, heavy mountain snows, and critical fire weather conditions. The office offers numerous Basic Spotter training courses each year, typically around March and November, and these free two-hour classes educate volunteers about the wide variety of weather hazards impacting eastern Utah and western Colorado.
The SKYWARN program in Grand Junction's forecast area plays a crucial role because spotters can observe weather phenomena that radar and technology cannot detect. Amateur radio operators and trained spotters provide ground truth reports critical for warning decisions. The office encourages reports via phone (970-243-7007), online submission, social media, or email, emphasizing the importance of accurate "T-E-L" reporting: Time, Event, and Location.
The NWS Denver/Boulder office serves northeast Colorado's urban corridor and Front Range communities, including Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and surrounding counties. This region experiences dramatic weather contrasts where plains meet mountains, producing severe thunderstorms with large hail and tornadoes, damaging downslope windstorms, heavy snow events, and dangerous flash flooding in burn scars and mountain canyons. The office has implemented innovative partial county alerting systems to target warnings more precisely to threatened populations.
The Boulder SKYWARN program has been active since the 1970s, and when combined with Doppler radar and satellite technology, spotter reports enable more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and flash floods. The program is organized through regional groups including the Denver Group (covering Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, and Jefferson counties) and the Northern Colorado Group ARES R3D2 (covering Larimer and western Weld counties). The office trains members of the public, police, fire departments, emergency management, and the amateur radio community each spring.
The NWS Goodland office covers the High Plains of northwest Kansas, northeast Colorado, and southwest Nebraska, serving rural agricultural communities across this vast open landscape. The region is classic "Tornado Alley" territory experiencing severe thunderstorms with large hail, tornadoes, damaging straight-line winds, winter blizzards with near-zero visibility, dangerous ice storms, and prolonged drought periods affecting agriculture. The office's coverage area represents some of the most weather-vulnerable farming and ranching country in the United States.
The Goodland SKYWARN program is essential for providing ground truth in an area where automated weather observations are sparse and radar coverage has limitations across the open plains. Amateur radio spotters serve as the eyes and ears for severe weather across counties that may be hours from the nearest NWS office. The office provides training for volunteers who monitor the skies during severe weather season, with reports critical for issuing timely tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings for these rural communities.
The NWS Pueblo office serves southern Colorado including the Arkansas River Valley, eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the southeast plains. This region faces diverse hazards including severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on the plains, heavy mountain snows in the Sangre de Cristos and Wet Mountains, flash flooding in mountain canyons and arroyos, and critical fire weather with strong downslope winds. The area's complex terrain creates dramatic weather gradients where conditions can vary from blizzards in the mountains to severe storms on the plains within the same day.
The Pueblo SKYWARN program trains dedicated volunteers across southern Colorado, including members of the public, police, fire departments, emergency management, and the amateur radio community in the latest storm spotting techniques each spring. Storm spotters play a critical role because they can see things radar and technology cannot detect, providing ground truth that is critical for NWS's primary mission of saving lives and property. The office offers online training through METED courses and provides spotter credentials to volunteers who complete certification.
The NWS Cheyenne office operates 24/7/365 serving southeast Wyoming and the western Nebraska Panhandle. This High Plains region is notorious for extreme and rapidly changing weather including violent high wind events with gusts exceeding 70 mph that can overturn vehicles, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, dangerous winter blizzards that can strand travelers, and temperature extremes from summer heat to life-threatening cold. The Interstate 80 and I-25 corridors through this area are particularly vulnerable to sudden weather changes affecting thousands of travelers.
The Cheyenne SKYWARN program provides critical real-time weather observations across Wyoming's vast open spaces where population is sparse and automated stations are limited. Amateur radio operators form an essential communication network, especially during severe winter storms when other communications may fail. The office offers spotter training classes and maintains close coordination with emergency management, transportation officials, and the amateur radio community to protect lives and property across this challenging forecast area.
The NWS Salt Lake City office maintains a volunteer spotter network of over 400 people assisting with observations across Utah and southwest Wyoming, where significant weather events range from high winds and blizzards to severe thunderstorms, flash flooding, and occasional tornadoes. The region's complex terrain from the Great Salt Lake to the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains creates unique forecasting challenges including lake-effect snow, canyon winds, valley inversions with air quality concerns, and flash flooding in steep terrain. The office covers diverse environments from high alpine to desert.
The SKYWARN program trains spotters to objectively observe and report potentially hazardous weather phenomena, with reports becoming part of the warning decision-making process combined with radar and satellite data. All spotter training sessions are open to the public, last approximately 90 minutes, and are offered free of charge throughout the region. The office emphasizes ground truth reports that provide credibility to NWS warnings and help forecasters improve their understanding of how storms behave in Utah's complex terrain. Amateur radio operators play a vital role in this network, particularly in remote areas where other communication may be limited.
Interactive WFO Map Below