Adjusters, contractors, and those with an avid interest in weather can provide a very important public and community service—hail spotting. HailTrace founder and CEO Derik Kline mentioned during our Tuesday @2 With Chip Merlin, which you can watch above, that he is a “hail spotter.” He suggested that others could provide a very important public service by taking the quick course and easy to pass test to become an official “hail spotter” with the National Weather Service.
The National Weather Service says this about its program:
The SKYWARN Storm Spotter Program was created by the National Weather Service (NWS) to improve warning services. The NWS needs real-time reports of hail size, wind damage, flash flooding, heavy rain, tornadoes, and waterspouts to effectively warn the public of inclement weather. Even as new technology allows the NWS to issue warnings with more lead time, spotters will always be needed as links between radar indications of severe weather and ground truth. Storm Spotter volunteers serve as severe weather spotters for the NWS and local emergency management programs, and generally have two things in common – an interest in the weather and a desire to serve their community.1
As Derik Kline explains in the video, eyewitness verification of hailstorms is important. If everybody in the roofing, construction, and adjustment community donated just a little bit of their time and provided this important public service, the accuracy of hailstorms and severe weather would be increased.
I encourage readers of this blog to learn a little science about hailstorms and hailstorm insurance claims by watching the above video. I also encourage you to provide an important service to your community and become a “hail spotter.”
Just follow this link to learn how to qualify as a hail spotter.
Thought For The Day
Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger
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1 https://www.weather.gov/chs/skywarn
