SKYWARN is a concept developed in the early 1970s that was intended to promote a cooperative effort between the National Weather Service and local communities. The emphasis of the effort is often focused on the storm spotter, an individual who takes a position near their community and reports wind gusts, hail size, rainfall, and cloud formations that could signal a developing tornado. Another part of SKYWARN is the receipt and effective distribution of National Weather Service information.

SKYWARN is not a club or organization, however, in some areas where Emergency Management programs do not perform the function, people have organized SKYWARN groups that work independent of a parent government agency and feed valuable information to the National Weather Service. While this provides the radar meteorologist with much needed input, the circuit is not complete if the information does not reach those who can activate sirens or local broadcast systems.

SKYWARN spotters are not by definition "Storm Chasers". While their functions and methods are similar, the spotter stays close to home and usually has ties to a local agency. Storm chasers often cover hundreds of miles a day. The term Storm Chaser covers a wide variety of people. Some are meteorologists doing specific research or are gathering basic information (like video) for training and comparison to radar data. Others chase storms to provide live information for the media, and others simply do it for the thrill.

The Northern Illinois Multi-County SKYWARN

 On August 28, 1990, a devastating tornado struck Plainfield, Illinois, killing 29 people. As a result of the lack of adequate public warning due in part to the absence of a coordinated county structure for warning residents of impending severe weather, a group of agencies responded to correct this problem. The DuPage County Office of Emergency Management, The College of DuPage and the Chicago National Weather Service Forecast Office devised a multi-county severe weather warning network. These include the counties of Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Will, LaSalle, Lake, Lee, McHenry, Ogle and Winnebago Counties. A map of these can be found here.

Since it's formation in the fall of 1990, the MCS has trained over 3,000 spotters in 15 counties, as well as some who have traveled from other countries, who have heard about it's training program. The DuPage County OEM also maintains a communications center, with live NEXRAD, satellite and other data for monitoring incoming severe weather, which is then relayed to the spotters via the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

The goal of the Northern Illinois MCS is to provide the fastest possible communication between spotters, the National Weather Service, and other agencies in relaying critical weather information to protect the citizens living in our area.