SKYWARN Spotter Training in Indiana

SKYWARN spotter training is a free two-hour class run by the National Weather Service that teaches you to recognize what a severe storm is doing and how to report it. You do not need an amateur radio license to take it, and you do not have to promise to do anything afterward. It is the one thing on this site that is open to everyone on day one, which is also why a lot of Indiana hams started here.

Classes you can still attend

7 upcoming classes, soonest first. In-person classes are listed only when they are held in Indiana; online classes are listed when the office running them serves Indiana counties.

When	Class	Where	Office	Register
Tuesday, November 3 6:00 PM Central	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register
Monday, November 16 10:00 AM Central	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register
Monday, November 23 6:00 PM Eastern	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register
Monday, November 30 10:00 AM Central	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register
Thursday, December 3	Winter Weather Spotter	Online	PAH	Register
Tuesday, December 8 7:00 PM Eastern	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register
Friday, December 11 11:00 AM Eastern	Winter Weather Spotter Training	Online	IND, IWX, LOT	Register

A class can be canceled, moved or filled after this page was built, and registration for the virtual sessions closes before the start. The office's own page is authoritative — check it before you drive anywhere. Last checked 2026-10-19.

Why the list is empty half the year

Spotter training is seasonal, and it is scheduled around severe weather rather than around the calendar. Most Indiana classes run from late February into early April, so they are finished before the spring severe season starts. NWS Paducah adds a second round in September and October. Winter-weather spotter sessions, which are a different class about snow and ice, land in November and December.

So an office with nothing listed in July has not gone quiet. Scheduling generally begins around the New Year, and classes are arranged with each county's emergency management agency — which is also who to ask if your county has not had one in a while.

The six offices that cover Indiana

Indiana's 92 counties are split between six National Weather Service forecast offices, and each one runs its own spotter program with its own schedule, its own registration and its own rules about certificates. Find the office for your county on its county page, then go to that office's schedule.

Office	Indiana counties	How it runs training
NWS Indianapolis IND	39	Classes are arranged with each county's emergency management agency and run from late February through early April. The schedule is the office's public Spotter Outreach calendar, read here directly.
NWS Northern Indiana IWX	24	Runs both a spring and a fall season, in person by county and as virtual sessions. Entered in the NWS Central Region spotter-talk listing, read here directly.
NWS Louisville LMK	10	Lists the multi-office virtual sessions, which are the same ones in the Central Region listing, plus four self-paced online modules with quizzes that end in a spotter registration.
NWS Paducah PAH	6	Trains in February and March and again in September and October, and adds an Elite Spotter workshop for people who have done the basic class. Its schedule table is read here directly.
NWS Chicago LOT	5	States that basic storm spotter training in its area -- northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana -- is offered online only; its in-person events are community weather preparedness, which is a different class.
NWS Wilmington, OH ILN	8	Trains from late January through early May, one or two classes per county, arranged with the county emergency management agency. Its schedule is an HTML table on its own page and is NOT harvested here -- check the page. This office's schedule is not read automatically, so nothing from it appears in the table above even when it has classes. Check its page.

What the class is, and what it is not

It is about reporting, not chasing. A spotter reports from somewhere safe — usually a fixed position they already know. Storm chasing is a different activity and the Weather Service does not teach it.
There is no fee, no test in the basic class, and no obligation. Plenty of people attend because they are interested in weather, and some because storms frighten them and knowing more helps.
Retrain every two or three years. NWS Indianapolis recommends every two; NWS Chicago says at least every three.
Spotter IDs and certificates vary by office. Some offices issue them, some leave it to the county emergency management agency, and some do neither. Ask at the class.
An online course is not always accepted as the class. NWS Indianapolis, for instance, registers new spotters only from people who attended in person or virtually with them, and treats the self-paced material as a supplement.

Where amateur radio comes in

A trained spotter needs a way to get a report to the Weather Service while the storm is happening, which is exactly what amateur radio is good at when the cell network is busy or down. During severe weather Indiana hams check into SKYWARN nets and relay hail size, wind damage and flooding to the office covering their county.

ARES, RACES and SKYWARN in Indiana — how emergency communications is organized here.
Indiana nets — including the SKYWARN nets that activate during severe weather.
Indiana on BrandMeister DMR — talkgroup 31183, “Indiana WX Ops” is the statewide DMR talkgroup for weather operations.
Start here — if the class leaves you wanting a license, this is the next step.

Class schedules on this page come from the National Weather Service: the NWS Central Region spotter-talk listing, NWS Indianapolis's public spotter training calendar, and NWS Paducah's own schedule page. NWS output is US government work in the public domain. The selection — which classes an Indiana resident can actually attend — is ours, and it is published as spotterTraining.json on the open data page.