Celebrating 50 Years!

We're proud to celebrate with you, three significant anniversaries!

Rice County Skywarn first came together 50 years ago this year (2026), when in 1976, a group of individuals from Rice County Civil Defense, the National Weather Service, and local commercial and amateur radio sources came together to solve a problem. The 1957-era radar the MSP airport was using at the time could only depict precipitation and not wind, and had a more difficult time doing it at a low altitude the farther the radar beam travelled. In other words, it was difficult to get a true picture of what was happening at the ground level. 'Ground truth' weather observers could help fill in the gaps if they were properly trained.

Radar technology has improved, but still today, the radar beam can only read echoes between 1200-3700 feet in the air, depending on where you are in Rice County. Trained spotters still help to fill in the gaps with real 'ground truth'.

Today (July 23, 2026) is the 15th anniversary of Rice County Skywarn's presence on Facebook. Our very first posts from July 23, 2011 were a heat advisory and several severe thunderstorm warnings that morning, leading to near 1 inch hail in Lonsdale and 12-18 inch diameter trees down in Northfield.

This month, we also celebrate Rice County Skywarn's 10 year anniversary of being selected a NOAA Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Ambassador. This distinction is given to formal partners who collaborate with NOAA to improve citizen's readiness, responsiveness, and resilience against extreme weather events.

Because of you, we now have over 17,000 followers on Facebook, and over 6,500 followers on Snapchat.

We sincerely hope that we are on track to being a leading volunteer weather spotting group in all the upper-midwest, and that we have helped educate and inform Rice County citizens about all forms of severe weather.

From all 156 trained spotters here at Rice County Skywarn, we thank you!