Toano resident Vincent Poto is a man who has earned a few nicknames in his life.
As a Red Cross Mass Care Volunteer, Poto has been deployed to disaster-stricken communities in Georgia and Louisiana to distribute life-saving supplies to those who have been displaced.
His friends call him the disaster chaser.
“I’ve seen the devastation of what floods and tornadoes can do, and that prompts me to want to be on the SKYWARN team,” Poto said.
SKYWARN is a network of trained volunteers across the country that provide reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service. Comprised primarily of amateur radio operators called HAMS who have passed NWS training courses, the spotters are able to provide the NWS with up-to-the-second localized information.
When it comes to severe weather, the NWS collects reports from volunteers like Poto on potentially damaging weather events like hail, thunderstorms, heavy rains and snowstorms, and even tornadoes.
“They’re our eyes on the ground that provide us info about what’s going on at ground level that we might not otherwise know about,” said Bill Sammler, Wakefield coordinating meteorologist.
Sammler said the NWS operates radar to track weather events and has advanced models to produce forecasts. However, when destructive events like tornadoes or flash-flooding strike, spotters sometimes know even before the NWS.
“It’s possible our spotters might actually be the first info that we have that a tornado has occurred,” Sammler said, adding that weak, but still dangerous, tornadoes might not be apparent on radar.
Making a report
It’s through his participation in SKYWARN that Poto gained another nickname of sorts, his Federal Communications Commission-provided radio call sign: Kx4hh.
Poto introduces himself as Kx4hh, or Kilo xray four hotel hotel, when making his reports over the radio on a frequency set aside for weather information.
“My first report was this past winter,” Poto said. “I was out in the snow, I have a pickup truck with four-wheel drive. Coming out of my neighborhood, Stonehouse Glen, I got out of my truck and measured the depth of the snow.”
The snow was 7 inches deep at the time of his measurement, with drifts between one and two feet. He was also seeing icy road conditions on Rt. 199.
Poto, as Kx4hh, called in the measurements and his location over the radio he has onboard his truck.
His report, which was provided over a specified frequency, is picked up by a repeater on a radio tower in Williamsburg. The repeater then amplifies his message so that it can be received at greater distances by regional net control operators, who then collect and submit the reports to the NWS Forecast Office in Wakefield, Virginia through an online portal.
Poto’s report, and those from other spotters across the region, helped inform the NWS of the impacts from early January’s substantial winter storm.
“[With] any of the snowstorms we’ve had recently, their reports are critical to us,” Sammler said. “We get a lot of reports from spotters. They play a critical role during winter weather.”
During their training, spotters are taught the parameters the NWS is looking for in reports, said SKYWARN Wakefield Amateur Radio Coordinator Howard Waxman. This includes wind speeds above 50 miles per hour, hail larger than peas, lightning damage, flooding, snow accumulation, and downed trees and power lines.
Net control operators also speak on the channel during times of inclement weather to inform the spotters of the specific information the NWS is looking for, and filter reports that don’t meet NWS standards.
“People are terrible at estimating, so we stress ‘we don’t want an estimate,’” Waxman said. “If you don’t have weather station equipment – which lots of people do – then we’re really not interested in your report…It doesn’t serve the National Weather Service very well to get those inaccuracies.”
Value-added service
Greater Williamsburg’s amateur network of weather-spotting volunteers is strong compared to those in other communities, Wakefield SKYWARN Training Coordinator and Toano resident Marcus Stevenson said. What makes it so effective, he said, is an active base of dedicated participants from all walks of life who invest their time and energy.
“It runs the gamut,” Stevenson said. “There is no mold. It crosses all demographics, age, everything.”
He added that retirees typically cover the daytime hours, and younger people are available at night.
Waxman estimated that 50 people in Williamsburg have taken the training to be a spotter in the past three years. Spotters must renew their certification once every three years.
Poto said there is a sense of camaraderie among the spotters, who often speak to one another over their radios. He knows the names – not just the call signs – of a few other local spotters, and has listened and learned from those with more experience.
While the spotters may form their own community linked through their radios, what drives them to join SKYWARN is the communities they live in.
“I think the combination of their interest in radio, service to community, as well as an interest in weather,” Stevenson said. “To do SKYWARN spotter activity for a lot of folks is a natural transition from what they enjoy about amateur radio. It’s a value-added service to the community.”
Poto worked in the railroad industry for 32 years before retiring in 2012. Since his retirement he began volunteering with the Red Cross, and later SKYWARN, in an effort to mitigate the impacts of disaster and serve his community.
He’s become the disaster chaser he is today because of his own brush with disaster in 1983.
He and a friend were riding their motorcycles onto the Grand Central Parkway in New York. A clogged sewer had flooded the street, and Poto and his friend collided. Poto’s right hand broke his friend’s brake lever, and Poto careened over a guardrail, flipping over an oncoming vehicle.
“The last thing my friend saw was my brake light flying through the air,” Poto said.
Poto landed in some dirt with a smashed thumb and a traumatic brain injury, but in the car he passed over was an off-duty paramedic, who immediately provided life-saving treatment.
“I never knew who this man was who saved my life,” Poto said, “but I promised God I would help people.
“This is what I do.”
Want to become a spotter?
A free, basic SKYWARN class will be presented by the NWS, the City of Williamsburg and James City County in April. The course will began at 6 p.m. on April 11 at James City County Recreation Center, 5301 Longhill Road.
