WARN — the Weather Amateur Radio Network — is a volunteer group of severe-weather observers and net-control operators feeding the Riley County warning system. MAARS members have staffed it for decades.
How a report reaches the county
- An observer on post sees something and reports it by radio.
- WARN net control — operating from a station inside the Riley County Emergency Operations Center — takes the report.
- Net control relays it immediately to Riley County Emergency Management staff in the same room.
- Emergency Management passes it to county emergency departments and to the public.
Amateur radio carries the first leg of that chain. That is the whole reason the network exists: a trained eye on the ground, on a radio that works when other things do not.
Training
Observers and net-control operators go through classroom training — tracking and plotting storms on maps, observer safety, radio procedure — followed by field training as a ride-along with an experienced observer.
A home-spotter model was proposed in September 2023, so operators could report from their own location instead of driving to an assigned post. Ask at a meeting whether it was adopted.
Observer post locations are not published
The old site listed seventeen observer posts by street address. This one does not, and will not. Post assignments come from WARN, not from a web page.
Status
WARN activity: Meetings recorded through late 2023
MUST CONFIRM: whether WARN is currently activating, who to ask about joining, and when the next training runs.
Unverified. No check on record.
Sunday weather net: Status unknown
The old site carried the line “A weather net is held on Sundays at 8 P.M. on the MAARS repeater” inside an HTML comment — hidden rather than deleted, so it stopped at some unrecorded date. Confirm whether any weather net still runs.
Unverified. No check on record.
During severe weather
If you are not a trained spotter, the useful thing is to stay off the repeater while a weather net is running and to take your warnings from the National Weather Service. If you want to be part of the network, come to a meeting and say so.