The United States is the most severe weatherprone country in the world. Each year, people in this country cope with an average of 10,000 thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, 1,200 tornadoes, and two landfalling hurricanes. Approximately 90% of all presidentially declared disasters are weather-related, causing around 500 deaths each year and nearly $14 billion in damage. SKYWARN(r) is a National Weather Service (NWS) program developed in the 1960s that consists of trained weather spotters who provide reports of severe and hazardous weather to help meteorologists make life-saving warning decisions. Spotters are concerned citizens, amateur radio operators, truck drivers, mariners, airplane pilots, emergency management personnel, and public safety officials who volunteer their time and energy to report on hazardous weather impacting their community. Although, NWS has access to data from Doppler radar, satellite, and surface weather stations, technology cannot detect every instance of hazardous weather. Spotters help fill in the gaps by reporting hail, wind damage, flooding, heavy snow, tornadoes and waterspouts. Radar is an excellent tool, but it is just that: one tool among many that NWS uses. We need spotters to report how storms and other hydrometeorological phenomena are impacting their area. SKYWARN(r) spotter reports provide vital "ground truth" to the NWS. They act as our eyes and ears in the field. Spotter reports help our meteorologists issue timely, accurate, and detailed warnings by confirming hazardous weather detected by NWS radar. Spotters also provide critical verification information that helps improve future warning services. SKYWARN(r) Spotters serve their local communities by acting as a vital source of information when dangerous storms approach. Without spotters, NWS would be less able to fulfill its mission of protecting life and pro

The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest is a slice of classic Oregon: due east of Eugene in the Cascade Mountains, the Andrews Forest comprises almost 16,000 acres of the Lookout Creek watershed. The landscape is steep, with hills and deep valleys and cold, fast-running streams. The densely forested landscape includes cedar, hemlock, and moss-draped ancient Douglas fir trees. One of eighty-one USDA experimental forests, the Andrews is administered cooperatively by USFS, OSU, and the Willamette National Forest. While many Oregonians may think of the Andrews simply as a good place for a hike, research conducted there has profoundly reshaped Forest Service management policies and contributed to our understanding of healthy forests. In A Place for Inquiry, A Place for Wonder, William Robbins turns his attention to the long-overlooked Andrews Forest and argues for its importance to environmental science and policy. From its founding in 1948, the experimental forest has been the site of wide-ranging research. Beginning with postwar studies on the conversion of old-growth timber to fast-growing young stands, research at the Andrews shifted in the next few decades to long-term ecosystem investigations that focus on climate, streamflow, water quality, vegetation succession, biogeochemical cycling, and effects of forest management. The Andrews has thus been at the center of a dramatic shift in federal timber practices from industrial, intensive forest management policies to strategies emphasizing biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.