National Weather Service training offers education on floods

Jun. 14—High school student Riddhi Sadhanala scribbled in her notebook Tuesday night as colorful maps and videos of cars being swept down flooded roads filled the TV screens at the Frederick County Public Safety Training Facility.

Sadhanala came from Montgomery County to attend an event on floods hosted by Frederick County's emergency management division and the National Weather Service.

An aspiring meteorologist, her aim is to become a volunteer weather spotter, providing information about local floods and other weather events to the National Weather Service in an effort to keep her community safe.

"I want to use this opportunity to become certified and able to take action whenever a severe weather event occurs, just like they're training us to do here, but also to have this general knowledge they're providing us to apply to higher education," Sadhanala, a rising junior at Walter Johnson High School, said.

Skywarn Flood offered participants information on how different types of floods happen and how they're forecast.

Like Sadhanala, participants in Tuesday's program could register to become volunteer weather spotters after the training. Spotters "help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather," according to the National Weather Service's website.

Spotters' contributions are especially helpful in Frederick County, said Rebekah May, an emergency management planner for the county who helped coordinate the event.

"We by far do more alert and warnings for flooding and weather than anything else," May said. "Weather spotters are critical to helping us with that."

Floods in the area aren't a new phenomenon, according to Jeremy Geiger, a senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office, which serves a forecast area of over 10 million people that includes Frederick County.

The first recorded flood in the area happened in 1748, and since then, floods have become the number-two cause of long-term weather-related deaths, second only to heat deaths, Geiger said at Tuesday's event.

Geiger emphasized the National Weather Service's "turn around, don't drown" philosophy to the Skywarn attendees, explaining that the best thing to do if a person encounters a flood is to avoid it. Just a few inches of water can pick up a car or person and lead to drowning, he said.

The training drew several amateur radio operators, including Frederick resident Russ Main, who recently received an amateur operator license from the Federal Communications Commission.

Amateur radio operators can report information about floods and other severe weather if phone lines are down, so it's important to learn more about flooding and hydrology, according to Main.

"We wanted to try to help out and their goal was to try to save lives and property, so that's kind of why I got involved," Main said.

The National Weather Service training session and another one held last week in Frederick about severe weather basics come as the Frederick area awaits a potential major flood in the coming years.

In 2018, parts of the county and other areas north and west of Washington, D.C., saw floods with well over 16 inches after heavy rains.

With the area's proximity to the Monocacy and Potomac rivers and increasing urbanization — which results in more runoff from concrete surfaces and can contribute to flooding — another flood is possible, Geiger said.

"Flooding is getting worse. It might not happen as often, but when it does, it's really bad," Geiger said. "The last time we had a major flood in the Potomac was in 1996, so we're way overdue."

Geiger emphasized that while something is only considered a flood if there's a threat to lives or property, the National Weather Service appreciates any information about high water levels and severe weather that spotters can provide.

Skywarn attendees also learned about the different factors the National Weather Service takes into account when forecasting floods, as well as tools used to measure water levels, like gauges and pressure transducers.

Main said he hopes more people get involved in future Skywarn trainings, including young people and those in community leadership roles.

"It would be a great program for children to know about to help them save their lives or make sure that they can contribute to helping others save lives," Main said. "It's a great educational program."