WX5FWD SKYWARN® Team

Serving for more than thirty years, the WX5FWD SKYWARN™ team are volunteer radio operator liaisons for the Fort Worth National Weather Service (NWS) North Texas SKYWARN™ Spotters. During SKYWARN events, you are reporting information to our team and the NWS warning forecasters. Three goals of a storm spotter are to safely observe, identify and report conditions.

Weather spotters provide what's called "ground truth" to the National Weather Service and emergency weather management. Spotters are needed because, while radar is very good at helping the National Weather Service see what's going on in the upper atmosphere, it's unable to detect what's actually happening on the ground because of the curvature of the Earth. Knowing the "ground truth" about a weather event from the location can be the deciding factor to issue a warning.

Weather Notifications via Pushover

Submitted by wd5m on Thu, 2026-05-07 05:48

May 6, 2026 - FWD Messaging Group Discontinued

Pushover lowered messaging limits has forced us to discontinue the FWD 46 county messaging group. We sent more than 10,000 messages to the FWD group in April. If you are subscribed to the FWD Pushover message group, please login to Pushover and unsubscribe. Then use the form below to subscribe to select geographic (COG) message groups. Moving FWD CWA subscriptions to specific geographic regions will reduce the total number of messages sent by our account. The FWD message group will be deleted soon.

To ensure the continued reliability of our weather alerts, we have recently added a new server to our delivery network. To complete this transition, all users must manually move their subscription to the new system. Please follow the two-step process below to stay connected.

Please Support Us!

Submitted by wd5m on Tue, 2025-09-30 12:41

The WX5FWD SKYWARN® Team is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The WX5FWD SKYWARN® Team organization is entirely supported by volunteers and donations. Although the NWS facilitates us to operate from the forecast office and their tower, the radio desk equipment and time are provided by volunteers and donations.

About WX5FWD SKYWARN® Team

Submitted by wd5m on Fri, 2026-03-20 22:04

The WX5FWD SKYWARN® Team is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered with the IRS and incorporated in the state of Texas in 2022.

Mission:

To support the National Weather Service (NWS) during severe weather events through the SKYWARN® Program and by the coordinating of storm spotters, receipt, and processing of spotter reports, and to provide technical, radio, and any other assistance required during weather or emergency events.
Provide service to the community at large through providing communications and other services, without compensation, for NWS and amateur radio events and in emergency situations.
1. Provide a communications capability and a source of technical support for the benefit of members and the community, especially in times of emergency;
2. Promote fraternalism and cooperation among members;
3. Furthering technical expertise in the fields of radio and electronics through Team activities and training classes;
4. Training in proper radio operating procedures and emergency preparedness through member participation in operating events and special activities.

SPOTTER reporting with Radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) Links

Submitted by wd5m on Fri, 2026-02-20 11:53

The Ft. Worth NWS SKYWARN Team operate multiple amateur radio systems, including RoIP systems such as EchoLink IRLP and Allstar. Our RoIP systems are normally dedicated to direct connections with remote SKYWARN spotter radio stations in affected areas during weather events.

WX5FWD Server reboot COMPLETED

Submitted by wd5m on Fri, 2025-11-14 10:23

A recent security update for Linux requires us to reboot some WX5FWD servers to complete the update. The WX5FWD Wireguard VPN, EchoLink proxy and VoIP servers will be rebooted between 10PM 11/15/2025 Saturday night and 6AM 11/16/2025 Sunday morning. Rebooting usually takes a minute or two. Clients should automatically reconnect after the servers come back online.