Radar tells you what the atmosphere is doing. A spotter tells you what actually reached the ground. Spotter reports are the second kind of observation: filed by a person who was there, scored against everything we can check them with, and published where forecasters and the public can see them.
Where a report goes
A filed report lands in three places, and it reaches them at different speeds:
| Destination | Who reads it | When |
|---|---|---|
| The placefile | Forecast offices, chasers, broadcast desks, in their radar software | Within two minutes |
| The live map | Anybody on the site | Immediately, if it clears the bar |
Its own page at /r/<ref> |
Anybody with the link | Immediately |
How a report is scored
Every report carries two numbers, and they are never blended into one.
Reporter trust is about the person. Tenure, whether they passed our certification and how well, whether their amateur callsign checks out against the FCC record, whether a verified organization vouches for them, and how often their past reports have held up against damage surveys.
Plausibility is about this one report. Whether radar agrees, how precisely the location was fixed, how quickly it was filed after the event, and whether anybody independent reported the same thing.
Together they decide how confident the report reads, never whether it is shown. Every report is public the moment it is filed, whoever filed it, and the map draws a low-confidence report paler rather than leaving it off. Only a report that names injuries or deaths, or one the person named on it disowns, stays off the public map.
There is no moderation queue
Nothing waits for a human to approve it. A single operator cannot staff a review queue with a minutes-long response time at two in the morning during an outbreak, and a queue nobody clears is a silent drop wearing the costume of diligence.
What replaces it is the scoring above, plus one thing that matters more: reports are re-scored after they publish. When radar contradicts a report at the five-minute pass its confidence drops and it is drawn paler. It stays on the map.
What makes a report count for more
In rough order of how much difference each makes:
- Your record over time. Reports that radar and damage surveys later bear out are what move a spotter up the trust ladder. Training helps you file reports that do: find a SKYWARN class or a MetEd course.
- Filing quickly. A report filed while it is happening is worth more than the same report an hour later.
- A real GPS fix, rather than a point dropped on a map.
- A verified callsign, or membership of an organization we have verified.
- A photograph whose own metadata puts it where and when you say you were. One that cannot say where it came from does not count against you — it simply adds nothing.
Filing one
Anyone with a spotter profile can file, at every rung of the trust ladder, and every report publishes the moment it is filed. Training changes how much weight a report carries, never whether it is shown. If you have taken a SKYWARN class or a MetEd course, upload its certificate.
From the mobile app, which is the better place: a phone under a storm has a real GPS fix, a camera whose shutter time is known, and an outbox that holds the report until there is signal to send it.
From the web, with a pin on the map. No organization is needed to file your own report there. Operators of a verified emergency management, SKYWARN or forecast office account can also relay reports for other people from the web.
Either way, set up your spotter profile first. Your name, contact details and callsign live there, so the form you fill in under a storm asks only what actually changes: what, when, and where.