Longtime Bemis storm spotter gets equipment upgrade
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BEMIS, Tenn. — William Brantley has been a storm spotter in Bemis for decades, and his weather station got an upgrade Thursday, going from an analog to a digital thermometer along with a few other updates. Brantley has been recording weather information since he started sending the National Weather Service his reports almost 20 years ago. “I‘ve got personal records here at my home on paper — it goes back to January 1994,” he said. But Brantley is just one of nearly 700 storm spotters serving the West Tennessee area. Zwemer Ingram, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Memphis, says the storm spotters are the first line of defense when it comes to reporting severe weather in real-time. “The storm spotters are an integral part of our verification of actual ground truth for storms that we‘re looking at on the radar,” Ingram said. Brantley often carries more responsibility than just recording temperature and wind speed. In fact, his reports have even been recorded as official measurements during some of Madison County‘s worst weather — including a major snow storm that hit the area back in late February of 2009. “Measured a total of 14 inches, and on the back porch it was just as accurate with the way the house was set up,” Brantley said. To become certified, storm spotters take a two-hour class designed to teach them how to report severe weather. In the field, they‘ll call the National Weather Service with their reports, which are then relayed to the media. Ingram explained why the reports are necessary. “Somebody that‘s actually out in the field — a real spotter — sees something, and we can correlate damage they‘re seeing, the type of storm they‘re seeing exactly with what we‘re looking at on the radar,” he said. Even after having been a part of the program for over 20 years, Brantley says he‘s happy to help and that he‘ll continue to report the weather for the rest of his life, in snow or sunshine. If you‘d like to become a storm spotter, head to the Seen on 7 section of our website where you can see upcoming classes in the area. More classes are expected to be scheduled this fall.
