Severe Weather Awareness Training Held In DeSmet

Todd Heitkamp (yellow shirt facing crowd) begins a 2-hour "Severe Weather Awareness Training" in DeSmet Thursday night

Residents of at least three counties filled the Kingsbury County 4-H Grounds last night in DeSmet for a two-hour training session on safely watching and reporting severe weather. Referred to by most as storm spotter training, Todd Heitkamp, Warning Coordinator for the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls says, the weather service is now calling the presentation Severe Weather AWARENESS Training…

[audio:http://prprt.itmwpb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/688/2011/04/spottertraining1.mp3|titles=spottertraining1]

Heitkamp hopes the training session will clarify what first time attendees see above them…

[audio:http://prprt.itmwpb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/688/2011/04/spottertraining2.mp3|titles=spottertraining2]

The cool wet weather we’ve had so far this year may be a pain for farmers and county highway departments, but Heitkamp says its keeping weather, like what areas of the Southern United States are seeing away…

[audio:http://prprt.itmwpb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/688/2011/04/spottertraining3.mp3|titles=spottertraining3]

The weather that has been decimating the South could very well end up here in the upper Midwest…

[audio:http://prprt.itmwpb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/688/2011/04/spottertraining4.mp3|titles=spottertraining4]

Heitkamp gave the crowd of around 50 a personal prediction about the current years prospects for severe weather at the end of his presentations. And this year he’s a bit un-easy…

[audio:http://prprt.itmwpb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/688/2011/04/spottertraining5.mp3|titles=spottertraining5]

Heitkamp has five more seminars left to give in 2011 including tonight in Pipestone, Minnesota. In May training is set for Vermillion in South Dakota and Slayton, Worthington and Jackson in Minnesota.