Hi everyone and welcome to the October ALERT Newsletter.

Fall has arrived and with it we can look forward to the changing of the fall leaves, the occasional nip in the air, and the Hobgoblins that will visit us at the end of the month.

October is a fun time of the year, being not too hot and not too cold – the “Goldilocks” of seasons.

It is a time to enjoy fall football, the baseball playoffs and the last outdoor adventures of the year.

Here is hoping that you enjoy the days that this season brings, and the pretty weather October brings. Letting you rest before the storms of Fall.

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National Weather Service 25th Anniversary Open House

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the opening of the Birmingham NWS Forecast Office at the Shelby County Airport, the NWS will be hosting an open house Sunday October 27 from 10 AM to 3 PM.

The public is invited to see the operations area, meet the staff and look at a variety of displays from local first responders and core government and private partners.

Things to Do

There are activities for the whole family to enjoy at the Open House. Come prepared to learn about weather safety and preparedness in fun and exciting ways. The little ones are encouraged to come dressed in their Halloween costumes ready for some trick-or-treating!

Fun for the Whole Family:
Tour local National Weather Service (NWS) office
Meet the local NWS meteorologists
Learn how the weather radar works by viewing a working model NEXRAD
Watch a weather balloon release at 12pm
Tour various emergency vehicles from local fire departments, EMS, and law enforcement
Visit with local TV meteorologists and tour their storm chase vehicles (Birmingham & Montgomery stations)
Walk through exhibits from various local agencies & organizations
Learn about weather safety & preparedness
Grab some lunch from several local food trucks!

Special Activities for the Kids:
Trick-or-treating
Face painting
Pictures with Owlie Skywarn the NWS mascot
Kids’ booth with coloring sheets & cool weather experiments
Win chance to launch a weather balloon with Owlie! (Launch is scheduled for 12PM)

Event Information
What: 25th Anniversary Open House
Where: National Weather Service
465 Weathervane Rd Calera, AL
(Located at the Shelby County Airport)
When: Saturday, October 27th
Public Tours 10 AM – 3 PM
Admission is FREE!!

*No Smoking
**In the event of severe weather, the open house may need to be cancelled.
***No pets allowed. Service dogs permitted.
****No drugs, weapons, or alcohol of any kind allowed.

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Birmingham NWS Fall 2018 Spotter Courses

The Birmingham NWS office will present several online Basic Spotter Courses and a single Advanced Spotter Course this fall. These online classes allow individuals to complete the course(s) in the comfort of their own home or office with the use of https://www.join.me/ meeting site.

By attending any course, which runs about 2 hours, individuals or a group of individuals will become SKYWARN Spotters.

Unless you are in need of or just want to attend a refresher Course, you do not need to attend more than one Basic SKYWARN Course, as the material covered is the same; however it is required you to attend at least one Basic SKYWARN Course before taking the Advanced SKYWARN Course.

These courses are two-way, meaning you will be able to interact with the meteorologist leading the training. You will be muted while training is in-progress, and unmuted when applicable (e.g., for questions); or, you can use the built-in chat feature.

The current schedule is as follows:

Basic Class Tuesday, October 2 at 1:00 PM Online Use Session Code 935-938-747
Basic Class Wednesday, October 10 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 492-321-695
Basic Class Thursday, October 18 at 1:00 PM Online Use Session Code 131-611-700
Basic Class Thursday, October 25 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 725-905-971
Basic Class Tuesday, November 6 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 471-316-027
Advanced Class Tuesday, November 14 at 6:30 PM Online Use Session Code 398-176-443

Enter the session code at https://www.join.me/

There will be two live Basic Classes this fall:

Basic Class Thursday, October 18 at 6:00 PM The Venue (old Kmart building)
201 George Wallace Drive
Gadsden, AL
Basic Class Thursday, November 8 at 6:00 PM Alabama Fire College
2501 Phoenix Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL

These classes will help you provide the NWS the vital “ground truth” information they need to verify radar indications, target their attention and help you relay reports in a clear manner to the NWS, either directly via the ……. number or via chat or amateur radio. This knowledge helps Skywarn Net Control stations filter reports, by giving them knowledge of what reporting stations are trying to describe. This way they can tell if the report is a valid report, an invalid report by an overly excited operator or a valid, but, poorly described report, which without this knowledge would be mistakenly dismissed.

For further information on these classes visit: http://www.weather.gov/bmx/skywarnschedule

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News Alert! – Fall Simulated Emergency Test
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Our Fall Simulated Emergency Test for 2018 will be held October 27, 2018, from 8am to noon. Some counties may elect to perform your SET on a different weekend and that’s ok too. Here are the details for our announced SET for 2018.

Calling all amateur operators across Alabama. This year’s fall Simulated Emergency Test (SET) will begin on Saturday, October 27th. Most county exercise nets start Saturday at 8:00 AM and wrap up by noon but the exercise will remain active until Sunday evening after the statewide Alabama simplex net (146.580) at 8 PM.

This year’s simulated emergency will be a familiar one – severe winter weather. The simulation will provide details of a statewide cold snap that follows a warm front producing our typical ice storm followed by a snow event that is predicted to last a few days. The storm will cause partial closings of most state interstates and loss of power across much of the state due to downed power lines. With limited access and loss of power, there will be increased pressure on the limited resources of first responders and the health care system from critical care hospitals to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Shelters will be established across the state and amateur operators will simulate deployment to those facilities in their county as identified as a Served Agency by their County ARES leadership. All properly licensed operators are strongly encouraged to participate and to continue the states excellent record of participation. As you know in 2018 we again lead the country in participation scoring. While we are more interested in testing our capabilities and strengthening our relationships with our local agencies, it’s nice to be recognized as the leader in emergency communications.

We will have news and injects from the National Weather Services, state EMA and local served agencies throughout the exercise. Please check your equipment, be prepared and participate on October 27th.

Thanks everyone for your hard work for Alabama Amateur Radio.
——————————————————————–
ARRL Alabama Section
Section Manager: JVann Martin Sr, W4JVM
w4jvm@arrl.org

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The Night “They” Came

In the 1930’s the world of communications was much different than it is today. Television was still largely experimental. News and sports were obtained by newspapers, “newsreels” such as Fox Movietone News, which were short video news features presented in theatres preceding the matinee and via AM radio.

Dramatic “Live Breaking News” broadcasts as we know them today were in their infancy, having been born accidentally during the live broadcast of the arrival of the Zeppelin Hindenburg, which suddenly exploded in mid-air as reporter Herbert Morrison was describing its approach on May 6, 1937.

Hindenburg disaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJpBOQSHwPU

AM radio of that time was comparable to Television of today. Featuring sports, music, news and a large variety of entertainment programs such as “soap operas”, so called because they were advertised by soap companies, westerns, which were jokingly called “horse operas”, mysteries and horror stories.

Those old shows, which are now called by collectors “OTR” or “Old Time Radio” still has an advantage over the visually based presentations we see today. These shows tapped into the deep recesses and realms of the mind. There is nothing as deep or dark as the hidden chambers, catacombs and caverns of human imagination. If one, as the old gospel song says were to “turn the lights down low and listen to the Master’s radio”, one can become absorbed into the stories in a way you cannot do today using visual media such as TV. For in your “mind’s eye” it can become “as real as real gets.”

You could taste the dust, as you walked the streets of Dodge City with Matt Dillon, laugh at the ridiculous antics you were “seeing” of the Marx Brothers, or feel genuine fear as you walked the misty waterfront and heard that maniacal “Song of the Slasher” as he walked away singing into the distance, with a dripping knife in one hand and another crumpled corpse laying in a dark alleyway, as you listened to “Inner Sanctum”.

It could make your skin crawl and might cause you to turn around as you could swear you saw a shadow on the wall or heard some mysterious and ominous bump somewhere, over there, in the shadows.

On one particular Sunday evening, a little after 7, if one had happened to tune to WAPI which carried CBS programming, one would have heard the last bit of weather report and then a music program start with Ramón Raquello and His Orchestra live from the Park Plaza in New York City.

Dance music cheerfully played away when suddenly the program was interrupted by a news flash about strange gas explosions having been observed on the planet Mars moving towards the Earth “at enormous velocities”, followed by a live interview by reporter Carl Phillips with Professor Richard Pierson of Princeton Observatory, who dismissed speculation about life on Mars, even though science books of that day did hint at possibilities if not probabilities that some form of life could or did exist on that distant reddish orb.

The musical program returns, but is soon interrupted again by news of a strange meteorite landing in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. Phillips and Pierson are sent to the site and arriving find a large crowd of onlookers having gathered. The chaos and confusion is vividly described by Phillips who then spies the strange cylindrical object, which seems to be made of some sort of unknown metal. Then a portion of the cylinder suddenly starts to unscrew and open and a horrific, monstrous tentacled creature emerges, with “saliva dripping from its lipless mouth.”

As the police approach the creature waving a truce flag, some sort device appears which begins emitting a ray of light, which then becomes a jet of flame aimed at the advancing men. Suddenly the reporter shouts “Good Lord, they’re turning into flame!” and you hear the screams of agony, as the report suddenly goes dead.

An announcer explains that the remote broadcast was interrupted due to “some difficulty with our field transmission.”

As the broadcast continues there are live reports and dispatches of the futile military attempts to stop these invaders, who are being reinforced by other cylinders as they continue to fall.

Eventually, a news reporter, broadcasting from atop the “Broadcast Building” in New York City, describes the Martian invasion of the city – “five great machines” wading the Hudson “like men wading through a brook”, with poisonous black smoke drifting over the city, and people diving into the East River “like rats”, and others in Times Square “falling like flies”. He reads a final bulletin stating that Martian cylinders have fallen all over the country, then describes the smoke approaching down the street until in a coughing fit he falls silent, leaving only the sounds of the city under attack in the background.

The last words heard are a ham operator calling “2X2L calling CQ, New York. Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there… anyone?”

Then there followed the announcement “You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air, in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The performance will continue after a brief intermission.”

My, Mom, who was in her early 20’s saw my grandparents listening intently to the radio and asked “what is happening?” “Just a radio drama” they said. For they had heard the introduction which clearly stated “The Columbia Broadcast System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in the ‘The War Of The Worlds’ by H.G. Wells.”

Many however, tuned in just late enough to not hear the introduction and therefore thought this broadcast and the news bulletins were real.

Some modern historians and revisionists who like to “correct history” say “Historical research suggests the panic was far less widespread than newspapers had indicated at the time.”

Which is easy to say once the generation that witnessed the event is largely gone or unable to ask the simple question “where you there?” or perhaps in some cases more indelicately “what have you been smoking?”

I remember on more than one occasion my Mom watching TV presentations about historical events she had witnessed and lived through shaking her head and saying “I don’t know where they got that mess”, and then telling how it actually was during that time.

Indeed, I have seen historical events occur and then read accounts of these events ten or twenty years down the road that no more reflect what actually happened than the Man the Moon. For these reason I tend to doubt the doubters, and question the correctness of “corrected versions.”

That said, the New York Daily News reported “thousands of listeners rushed from their homes in New York and New Jersey, many with towels across their faces to protect themselves from the ‘gas’ which the invader was supposed to be spewing forth.

Simultaneously, thousands more in states that stretched west to California and south to the Gulf of Mexico rushed to their telephones to inquire of newspapers, the police, switchboard operators, and electric companies what they should do to protect themselves.

Eleven hundred calls flooded the switchboard at The News – more than when the dirigible Hindenburg exploded.

Churches in both New York and New Jersey were filled suddenly with persons seeking protection, and who found them, providentially, as they thought, open.

At St. Michaels Hospital, in Newark, fifteen persons were treated for shock.

In New York, police and fire departments and the newspapers were swamped with telephone calls from people, apparently frightened half out of their wits.

The telephone company also was deluged. The thing finally assumed such serious proportions that the Columbia Broadcasting System put bulletins on the air explaining that the ‘meteor’ broadcast was part of a play and that nothing untoward had happened.”

At the CBS studios it was said that “a few policemen trickled in, then a few more. Soon, the room was full of policemen and a massive struggle was going on between the police, page boys, and CBS executives, who were trying to prevent the cops from busting in and stopping the show.”

When news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it was just fiction.

In the days following, the uproar quickly died down.

The Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. Welles feared that the controversy generated by “War of the Worlds” would ruin his career, but, instead it helped him land a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane—a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.

War Of The Worlds broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g
War Of The Worlds transcript: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/mars/wow.htm

On November 12, 1944, the “War of the Worlds” broadcast was recreated in Chile. Broadcast from Santiago, the Chilean program created a public reaction similar to the American panic six years earlier. One governor in Chile was even reported to have mobilized troops to act against the alien invasion. It caused one death due to heart attack.

On February 12, 1949 in Ecuador, Radio Quito presented their version of the broadcast, which reportedly set off panic in the city. Police and fire brigades rushed out of town to engage the supposed alien invasion force. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot. Hundreds attacked and burned the building and occupants where Radio Quito and El Comercio, a local newspaper that had participated in the hoax by publishing false reports of unidentified objects in the skies above Ecuador in the days preceding the broadcast were housed. The riot resulted in at least seven deaths.

Could a similar situation occur today? Absolutely!

The closest modern equivalent to a War of the Worlds type broadcast I have found is a YouTube presentation “Breaking News – US networks report ‘serious incident’ between Russia and NATO forces.”

In this video, BBC America is shown presenting a mundane program about people looking for antiques, when about 3 minutes into the program it is interrupted by “breaking news” and is switched to a feed from BBC News Headquarters and absolutely realistic looking reports begin flooding in of Russian and NATO naval forces exchanging direct fire after a Russian aircraft was shot down, “high ordinance explosions” being reported, and with things rapidly escalating as war spreads across Europe “a large explosion being reported at Beale AFB in California” with footage that looks absolutely real.

If one had this on their computer monitor and someone came in not knowing what was going on, they might easily think that they were seeing the beginnings of “the end” with the world rapidly unravelling at the seams.

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the October 30, 1938 broadcast that unintentionally left Orson Welles mark in history and made him legend at a ripe old age of 23.

There was no ill intent, or as Orson Welles explained at the end of the program: “This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian – it’s Hallowe’en.”

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Mark’s Almanac

The tenth Month, October is so named because it is the eighth month on the Roman calendar. To the Slavs of Eastern Europe it is called “yellow month,” from the fading of the leaves, while to the Anglo-Saxons it was known as Winterfylleth, because at this full moon (fylleth) winter was supposed to begin.

By whichever name you call it, October is a mild and dry month, the driest of the year, in fact. And, it is a sunny month with the amount of possible sunshine reaching the ground in the 60% or greater range.

Weather shifts from autumn pattern to revisiting the summer pattern and back again. The Azores-Bermuda High shifts eastward into the Atlantic, but, leaves weakened high pressure centers over the Virginias, which still try to block out approaching fronts.

October is usually a quite month for tornadoes, with a 40% decrease in activity. Nationwide an average of 28 tornadoes occur in October and those tornadoes are usually weak.

Our Hurricane threat continues, with hurricane activity increasing during the first half of the month, concentrating in the Caribbean, both from formation in the Caribbean and from the long track Cape Verde hurricanes, which enter the Caribbean. And, we still have the little “gifts” that the Gulf of Mexico occasionally will provide.

Florida, due to its low latitude, becomes especially vulnerable to hurricanes. As Colorado State University researchers note, since 1851, Florida has endured 30 October hurricane landfalls, nearly triple the next highest state — Louisiana, which has had eight. Also, about 60 percent of all U.S. hurricanes that made landfall after September 26 have done so in Florida. One factor being the cold fronts of Fall penetrating the Gulf and then deflecting storms towards the West coast of Florida.

Luckily after the second half of the month the activity will begin a steady decrease.

28% of the year’s hurricanes occur in October.

From 1851 – 2017 there have been 339 Tropical Storms and 206 hurricanes, 56 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable October hurricanes are:

The Great Hurricane of 1780, also known as Huracán San Calixto, the Great Hurricane of the Antilles, and the 1780 Disaster, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane, which killed between 20,000 to 22, 000 people in the Lesser Antilles as it passed through from October 10 – 16, 1780. It is possible that it had winds in excess of 200 MPH when it reached Barbados.

Hurricane Hazel struck the Carolinas in 1954. Weather satellite did not yet exist and the Hurricane Hunters were unable to observe the core of the storm until it neared land on October 15. Hazel made landfall just west of the North Carolina/South Carolina border slightly northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with a Category 4 intensity of 130 mph.

Hurricane Wilma still holds the record as the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. In 24 hours Wilma went from a Category 1 storm on October 18 to a Category 5 storm with 185 MPH Maximum Sustained Winds. She weakened to Category 4 and struck the Yucatan, then restrengthened and struck Cape Romano Florida as a Category 3 storm on October 24, 2005.

Hurricane Mitch became a Category 1 hurricane on October 24, 1998 and within 48 hours grew to Category 5 intensity, and though he weakened to Category 1 before making landfall, he became the second deadliest hurricane on record killing over 11,000, with nearly that number missing in Central America due to intense rainfall and mudslides. He would eventually reach the United States making landfall near Naples Florida on November 5.

Beware of October hurricanes, for as Wilma and Mitch have demonstrated, they can experience explosive growth.

October Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

This is the month for Alabama’s version of “Indian Summer’s” arrival.

Technically speaking Indian Summer doesn’t occur until “Squaw Winter” or the first frost arrives, but exact date when Indian Summer arrives varies with latitude.

We live in Alabama, and while the earliest frosts have been known to occur by October 17, they usually wait until November. So, we, in our milder climate call the first warm up after the first cool down “Indian Summer”.

The Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies are very noticeable as they continue to drift South-Southeast on their migration towards Florida. They prefer red things & if you have red flowers they will zero in on them.

The Monarchs also will be seen gliding by in their migration towards Central America.

Fall colors will become prominent & by late October & early November the leaves will be reaching their peak fall colors.

Days rapidly grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 53.1 degrees at the beginning of the month to 42.2 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 11 hours 50 minutes on October 1 to 10 hours 51 minutes on October 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

October 1 Sunrise 6:42 AM Sunset 6:32 PM
October 15 Sunrise 6:52 AM Sunset 6:14 PM
October 31 Sunrise 7:05 AM Sunset 5:56 PM

Looking towards the sky, Mercury is hidden by the Sun.

Venus shines at magnitude –4.7 very low in the west-southwest in evening twilight and sets before twilight is over. Don’t confuse it with Jupiter, which will probably catch your attention first. Venus is to Jupiter’s lower right, and brighter.
In a telescope Venus is a striking crescent, about 30% sunlit. For better telescopic seeing, catch it higher in a blue sky long before sunset. Though difficult to spot, Venus at times is bright enough to be seen in the daytime.
Venus will reach “Inferior Conjunction” on October 26.
An inferior conjunction occurs when the two planets lie in a line on the same side of the Sun. In an inferior conjunction, the superior planet, which in this case is Earth, is in “opposition”, or directly opposite of the Sun if it were seen from the inferior planet, in this case Venus.
If one could push aside the perpetual clouds of Venus, one would see a brilliant blue “star” in the Venusian midnight sky, which would be Earth.
Mars, in southern Capricornus, fades from magnitude –1.7 to –1.5. It shines highest in the south about an hour after dark and sets around 2 a.m.
A week ago as I drove home from work, having worked the night shift, I drove directly toward the setting gibbous Moon with Mars shining right beside her, which it being 1 AM, generated an oddly eerie feeling.
The dust in the Martian atmosphere continues to settle, allowing surface markings to show with slightly better contrast.
Jupiter, magnitude –1.9, in Libra shines ever lower in the southwest in twilight.
Saturn, magnitude +0.4, above the spout-tip of the Sagittarius Teapot glows yellow in the south at dusk, well to the right of brighter Mars. It’s Summer in Saturn’s Northern Hemisphere and his rings are near their maximum 27 degree tilt towards Earth. He sets by midnight.
Uranus shining at magnitude 5, near the Aries-Pisces border reaches Opposition October 23. It will be brighter than any other time of the year. This is the best time to view Uranus. However, due to its distance, it will only appear as a tiny blue-green dot in all but the most powerful telescopes. He will be well up in the East by late evening.

Neptune shining at magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius is well up in the southeast by late evening.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on October 5, when she will be 227,668 miles from Earth.

The Draconid Meteor Shower will peak on October 8. This minor shower is produced by dust grains left behind by Comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner, which was discovered in 1900. This shower, which runs from October 6 – 10, is unusual in that it is best observed in the early evening, instead of the early morning hours as with most other showers.

This will be an excellent year to observe the Draconids because there will be no moonlight to spoil the show. Best viewing will be in the early evening from a dark location far away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Draco, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon will occur October 8. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This phase occurs at 9:47 CDT or 3:47 UTC which in Greenwich England is the 9th. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on October 17, when she will be 251175 miles from Earth.

The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on October 21 & 22. The Orionids is an average shower producing up to 20 meteors per hour at its peak This shower, which runs from October 2 to November 7, is produced by the broad debris trail of Halley’s Comet. The crescent moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies for what should be a good show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Orion, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

This is the time of year when the rich star clouds of the Milky Way in Cygnus crosses the zenith, looking like a ghostly band overhead in the hour after nightfall is complete. The Milky Way now rises straight up from the southwest horizon, passed overhead, and runs straight down to the northeast. Later at midnight, Orion the Hunter and the stars of winter rise over the eastern horizon, reminding us to enjoy the mild weather while it is here, for this season, as all seasons, is but a fleeting moment in the never ending waltz of time.

October’s Full Moon will occur October 24. The Moon will be directly opposite the Earth from the Sun and will be fully illuminated as seen from Earth. This phase occurs at 16:46 UTC or 11:46 AM CDT. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Hunters Moon because at this time of year the leaves are falling and the game is fat and ready to hunt. This moon has also been known as the Travel Moon and the Blood Moon.

3791 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of September 27, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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This month’s meeting will be on October 9 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.
Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

Hi everyone,

Though the temperature and certainly the humidity aren’t betraying the secret, Fall is soon approaching.

Already the grass is growing slower and the leaves are starting to look weathered and worn. Soon the Fall season and the events that come with it will arrive and we will enjoy the not too hot, not too cold days of the Goldilocks of seasons.

Football, camping, cookouts and a slight crispness in the air – do I sound like I am ready for it?

Whatever you are looking forward to, I hope you have a fun safe late Summer / Early Fall Season.

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Tempests, Trials & Tribulations

Early last month the Central Pacific was the temporary home to Hurricane Hector, a Category 4 storm that passed South of Hawaii. The name may have sounded familiar, for Hector, as it turns out, was quite a world traveler, having already visited the British Isles in early June.

Now how did Hector manage to do this feat? Hector cloned himself of course.

Or perhaps there is another explanation.

Beginning in 2017, the UK Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather service and its Irish counterpart Met Eireann decided to follow the US system of giving male and female names to tropical storms and hurricanes and began naming North Atlantic Storms or “Tempests” to make people more aware of the severe weather and help them prepare in advance.

Surveys showed people were more aware of the threat and more likely to take action after hearing the name of a storm, rather than a forecast simply saying that bad weather was on the way. For example, 89 per cent of people said they were aware of the approaching Storm Doris – which wreaked havoc in February 2017 – and 94 per cent said warnings were useful.

These storms will be given a name if it has the potential to cause an “Amber – Be Prepared” or “Red – Take Action” warning for the people of Britain and Ireland.

In the winter season of 2016/17, the names included Angus, Barbara, Conor and Doris.

The Met Office and Met Eireann’s joint list of names for 2017/2018 includes a total of 21 names which were chosen after being whittled down from more than 10,000 suggestions submitted by the public. One name was picked for each letter of the alphabet, apart from Q, U, X, Y and Z, those letters being omitted to ensure consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic, to reduce confusion for fellow weather experts, sea captains and pilots.

Those 21 names are: Aileen, Brian, Caroline, Dylan, Eleanor, Fionn (pronounced F-yunn), Georgina, Hector, Iona, James, Karen, Larry, Maeve, Niall (pronounced Nye-al), Octavia, Paul, Rebecca, Simon, Tali, Victor & Winifred.

If a storm has already been named by another meteorological agency, it will retain that name. For instance, it is not uncommon for a Tropical system named by the National Hurricane Center to recurve Northeast and remain intact as a storm and reach the British Isles.

The naming of storms of course isn’t a new idea, the Great Flood of Noah, being perhaps the oldest example of a named storm.

One curious thing to ponder upon, whether you believe the Biblical story or not, is that it is interesting that so many cultures and religions from the ancient Sumerians, Hindus, Greeks, Chinese, Norse, Mayan, Native American and even the Aboriginal peoples of Australia have legends of some sort a great flood, usually caused by divine interaction and many featuring a ship being built as a refuge for the remnants of mankind.

Are the legends merely coincidences or are they based on faded memories of a common event, memories almost lost in the mists of antiquity from the prehistoric days before mankind overspread the world in, as the Aborigines call them “the Dream Times” of early man?

Moving to more recent times, no record exists of the names of the Category 4 or 5 Hurricanes that geological evidence indicate struck Mobile Bay in 830 & 1140 AD, but, I imagine the Native America’s who endured these storms called them a name or two.

The earliest report of a Hurricane came from Christopher Columbus, who encountered a Hurricane during his second voyage to Hispaniola in September 1494.

Early West Indies Tropical Storms were named after the particular Saint’s day on which the storm occurred. For instance, “Hurricane San Roque of 1508”, which was the first recorded Tropical Cyclone in Puerto Rico.

As the centuries progressed this tradition would continue, with storms being named because of their intensity, such as the “Great Hurricane of 1722” which destroyed New Orleans, the location affected, as with the “Great Galveston Hurricane Of 1900” or for the holiday it fell on, such as the “Labor Day Hurricane of 1935”, the most intense hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, which struck the Florida Keys.

In the 1880’s and 1890’s Australian Meteorologist Clement Wragge began assigning names to Australia’s Tropical Cyclones. His original idea was to name them after the letters of the Greek alphabet, but, he later used names from Polynesian mythology and politicians, not necessarily for complementary reasons.

In addition to politicians who annoyed him, he used colorful names such as Xerxes, Hannibal, Blasatus and Teman.

Wragge’s Queensland weather office closed in 1903, but, his memory lived on. Especially with author George R. Stewart, who wrote a 1941 novel called “Storm”, in which a junior meteorologist named Pacific extratropical storms after former girlfriends. This novel was widely read, especially by US Army Air Corps and Navy meteorologists during World War II.

One version of how the modern naming of storms began is that during World War II US military meteorologists plotting storms over the Pacific ran into a problem. Where they had had no big problems plotting fronts, highs, lows and an occasional Typhoon, they found themselves having to plot two Typhoons at once. How were they to distinguish one Typhoon from the other in dispatches? They decided to stick them with names, as in Stewart’s novel, and began naming them after girlfriends and wives.

In 1945, the Armed Services publicly adopted a list of women’s names for Typhoons of the Western Pacific using the names of wives of officers assigned to forward forecast centers on Guam and the Philippines.

However, they were unable to persuade the U.S. Weather Bureau to adopt a similar practice for Atlantic Hurricanes.

Starting in 1947, the Air Force Hurricane Office in Miami began designating Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean using the old Army/Navy phonetic alphabet i.e., Able, Baker Charlie and so forth in internal communications.

In 1950 three Hurricanes occurred simultaneously in the Atlantic basin, which caused considerable confusion. To remedy this Grady Norton of the US Weather Bureau’s Miami Hurricane Warning Center decided to use the Air Force’s naming system in public bulletins and end of season summaries. The press soon caught on and started using these names, and the practice proved to be popular.

A new international phonetic alphabet was adopted in 1952, with the familiar Alpha, Beta, Charlie style which is commonly used today. To avoid confusion the US Weather Bureau switched to the Armed Forces system of using women’s names, which was both controversial and popular.

Using the US example other meteorological entities then began similar practices for naming storms in the Tropical Cyclone Basins under their jurisdiction.

In 1978, the current system that alternates between men’s and women’s names was adopted, following the practice used by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, which brings us to 2018.

Tropical Cyclone names for all basins may be found at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml and https://public.wmo.int/en/About-us/FAQs/faqs-tropical-cyclones/tropical-cyclone-naming

Then we come to the touchy subject of naming winter storms. Winter storms have been unofficially named since the mid 1700’s as a way to describe historic storms, beginning with “The Great Snow of 1717”, which dumped five feet of snow on the colonies of Virginia and New England in 1717.

In the 2010’s The Weather Channel and other media outlets began tagging their own names on winter storms

In November 2012, The Weather Channel began systematically naming winter storms, starting with the November 2012 nor’easter it named “Winter Storm Athena.” The Weather Channel compiled a list of winter storm names for the 2012–13 winter season, including Athena, Brutus, Caesar, Gandolf, Khan, and Nemo.

The Weather Channel Senior Director Bryan Norcross said “It would only name those storms that are ‘disruptive’ to people”. The reasoning being that the names help people with preparation.

Their decision was met with criticism from other weather forecasters, including NOAA, who does no acknowledge these names and in a November 2012 memo requested that its employees avoid referring to storms by name.

NWS spokesperson Susan Buchanan stated, “The National Weather Service does not name winter storms because a winter storm’s impact can vary from one location to another, and storms can weaken and redevelop, making it difficult to define where one ends and another begins.”

AccuWeather, a commercial weather forecasting service, also disagrees with the practice of naming winter storms. AccuWeather President Joel N. Myers stated in February 2013, “The Weather Channel has confused media spin with science and public safety. We […] have found this is not good science and will mislead the public.”

In defense of The Weather Channel’s practice, The Weather Channel’s Norcross said, “The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.”

AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines counters, “The Weather Channel probably names the storms because it gets the publicity”. In other words, they hype them for marketing reasons and ratings.

Whether it’s a good idea or just plain monkey business, I don’t know, and I won’t speculate either. For as a sweet lady once taught me “a wise monkey never monkey’s with another monkey’s monkey”, so this monkey isn’t going to go monkeying around with it.

Or as the old saying goes “Though I am tempted to do so, Wisdom whispers otherwise and sometimes I actually will heed Her silken voice.”

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Mark’s Almanac

September is the ninth month of the year and the seventh month of the Roman calendar, which is where the month gets its name.

Temperatures are still hot at the beginning of the month, but, by months end, fall will definitely be felt.

Noticeable in September will be the thickening of the cat’s fur, as she begins growing her winter coat & the drift of Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies as they migrate towards Florida.

Weather starts shifting from the summer to autumn pattern and then back again. Storm activity resembles the August pattern, but the Bermuda High starts shifting southward and begins weakening, which weakens the blocking effect that has hampered fronts attempting to invade from the northwest.

September is the peak of the hurricane season, the actual peak being on September 10. This peak coincides with the time of “syzygy”, when the effects of the solar and lunar gravity and autumnal equinox combine to provide the highest astronomical tides of the year. Add a hurricane’s storm surge on top of this and you can have incredibly destructive flooding.

From 1851 – 2017 there have been 584 Tropical Storms and 404 hurricanes, 111 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable September hurricanes are:

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which was a Category 4 Storm whose storm surge overwhelmed Galveston Island, killing 8000 people, and is still the deadliest weather disaster in US history.

The Labor Day Hurricane of 1936, the most intense storm to strike the US, was a Category 5 storm which moved through the Florida Keys and along West Florida, overturning trains and literally sandblasting people to death.

Camille, a category 5 storm, and the second most intense storm to hit the US, which devastated Mississippi and Louisiana in 1969.

Andrew was a category 5 storm which devastated South Florida in 1992. The ruins of buildings destroyed are still visible today.

Opal, which weakened to a category 3 storm just before striking near Pensacola and then moving into and maintaining hurricane strength deep into Alabama as it crossed the length of the state in in 1995.

Ivan, the category 3 storm which struck Alabama & Florida in 2004, caused tremendous damage to Gulf Shores and extensive damage to the state’s electrical grid. At the height of the outages, Alabama Power reported 489,000 subscribers had lost electrical power—roughly half of its subscriber base.

Katrina, which weakened from a category 5 storm to a category 3 storm at landfall near Buras Louisiana in 2005. This storm caused catastrophic damage to Louisiana and Mississippi, parts of which are still being rebuilt to this day.

Rita, a category 3 storm which struck the Texas – Louisiana border in 2005, and, despite the distance, dropped 22 tornadoes over Western Alabama.

Wilma, the strongest Atlantic Basin hurricane with 185 MPH winds, weakened slightly before hitting the Yucatan Peninsula, and then strengthening to a category 3 storm before striking near Cape Romano Florida in 2005. Wilma would be the last major hurricane to strike the US until Harvey 12 years later.

September Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

Days continue to grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 64.6 degrees at the beginning of the month to 53.5 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 12 hours 51 minutes on August 1 to 11 hours 52 minutes on August 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

September 1 Sunrise 6:21 AM Sunset 7:12 PM
September 15 Sunrise 6:31 AM Sunset 6:53 PM
September 31 Sunrise 6:40 AM Sunset 6:33 PM

Looking skyward, we find a unique occurrence in progress. Through the first week of September all eight planets, all five named dwarf planets and all 182 moons in the solar system are located on one side of the solar system.

This is called “maximus lopsiditus”, or at least it should be. Other than possibly tugging the Sun’s trek through the Milky Way slightly to one side, it has no major significance other than being a cool factoid.

Looking at the planets, Mercury, magnitude 0, the swiftest planet, is visible in the predawn below Gemini The Twins, rises 45 minutes before sunrise and will brighten to magnitude -1 as he reaches Perihelion, or his closest approach to the Sun on September 2.

He will then begin sinking towards the Sunset and pass behind the Sun reaching “Superior Conjunction” on September 20, when Mercury and the Earth will be on opposite sides of the sun.

Venus, magnitude –4.5, shines low in the west in twilight. In a telescope Venus is just on the crescent side of dichotomy or being half-lit. For the best telescopic view catch Venus as early as you can, preferably long before sunset while she is still high.

Mars, magnitude -2.3 at the border of Sagittarius and Capricorn is gradually fading and growing smaller as he moves away from the Earth. He rises higher in the southeast earlier in the evening and is at its highest in the south around 11 PM CDT and is still blazing red. Mars will reach Perihelion or his closest approach to the Sun on September 16.

Though Mars is not and never will be the same size of the Full Moon, as the recurring internet rumor states, I would take advantage of viewing Mars while he is still as large as he is, for he won’t appear this big again until 2035.

Jupiter, his 67 moons and thin rings shines at magnitude –2.0 in Libra in the Southwest in twilight.

Saturn, his 62 moons and massive rings glows yellow at magnitude +0.3 in the South at above the Sagittarius Teapot at nightfall.

Uranus, magnitude 5.8, is at the Aries-Pisces border; well up in the East by Midnight.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius is well up in the Southeast by Midnight. Neptune will be at Opposition, or his closes approach to Earth or 2,689,200,000 miles on September 7.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on September 7, when she will be 224,536 miles from Earth.

New Moon occurs September 9 at 1:01 PM CDT or 18:01 UTC when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on August 23, when she will be 251578 miles from Earth.

Fall begins at Autumnal Equinox on September 22 at 8:54 PM CDT or 1:54 UTC, when the Sun crosses directly over the equator and night and day is approximately the same length throughout the world. For the Southern Hemisphere it is Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring.

One term that occasionally pops up is “equinoctial storms”. Which are severe storms in North America and the UK that supposedly accompany the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Where this belief originated is obscure. Some say perhaps from the 1700’s when sailors were greeted by West Indies hurricanes, or due to the coincidence of the first fall severe storms sometimes coming in the latter half of September. At any rate, statistics show no evidence to support the belief.

On this date, if there is sufficient solar activity, and you are away from city lights, the aurora may possibly be seen, as the Equinox dates are the two most favored times of the year for auroral sightings.

September’s Full Moon will occur September 25 at 9:53 PM CDT or 2:53 UTC. This month’s moon is “Full Corn Moon” in Native American folklore because corn is harvested this time of year.

This year it is also “Harvest Moon”. Harvest moon get its name because the moon is larger and seems to rise at almost the same time every night, which allowed harvesting to continue on into the night.

Most believe that Harvest Moon is always in September; however this isn’t always the case. Harvest Moon is actually the full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox, and so occasionally it can occur with October “Hunters Moon”.

High in the Southern night sky an asterism or a group of stars appearing clustered together, but not actually gravitationally bound will be seen that resembles a teapot. This is the Teapot of Sagittarius.

To the naked eye, the Teapot is roughly the size of your fist at arm’s length. Above the spout of the Teapot lies a band of light, the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud. A pair of binoculars will reveal a sea of stars and faint grayish patches, the largest of which is the Lagoon Nebula. When you look upon these nebulae you are seeing stars in the process of being born.

The spout, which is tilting and pouring to the right, also points towards the galactic center of the Milky Way, located just beyond the Large Sagittarius Star cloud, but largely hidden by the dust clouds, which lie along the plane of the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy.

3778 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of August 23, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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This month’s meeting will be on September 11 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.
Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

Reading Tea Leaves With Mark
Or
Point Weather Forecasting For The Rank Amateur

“What’s it going to do this weekend?”

This is a question I’ve been asked countless times through the years after it was “discovered” that “that little kid Mark, ask him, he seems to know what the weather’s going to do.”

This “Mystic Ability” came about quite by accident. Long before my interest in ham radio or meteorology there was and still is a deep interest in astronomy. Starting at age 5, or around 1963, I would look through my sister Joyce’s old thick high school science book, which was published in the late 1940’s and see the pictures of star clouds and planets, later I would read it’s tales of “island universes”, the true nature of swirling galaxies having just been realized when the book was printed and of the probability of life on Mars. It fired my young imagination.

Around 1970 I saved what was to me a fortune and bought a reflector telescope for $30 and began exploring the night sky.

At school on Wednesday I would figure out what I would be looking at Saturday. Wednesday would be clear. By Thursday there were giant feathers in the sky. On Friday a halo would be circling the Sun and on Saturday buckets of rain would be falling.

It only took a few episodes of this for me to figure out the pattern.

So it was that Thursday would come, I would look up at the sky, cancel my plans to count craters on the moon, and would remark to a friend planning to “go fishin” Saturday “you might better take an umbrella.” To which he would reply “yeah sure, you don’t know nuthin.”

Monday would come and he would come, still disappointed from his fishing trek being rained out and ask “How did you know?”

“It’s an ancient secret, passed down to only a few” I would say, and maybe mumble something about Forbidden Knowledge Of The Egyptians, and watch his blank expression.

That started it. I get asked “what’s it going to do” daily, from near and far. Just five minutes ago someone asked “what will it do today?” and that’s just twice so far for today.

I don’t mind it at all. It’s fun.

“Why don’t you do this on TV?” some have asked.

Besides having a face that would frighten little children if they saw me on TV, let’s just say that the twists and turns of life and a general reeking of my mathematical ability, both higher and lower, have combined to make that possibility somewhat dubious.

If by chance I were to get struck by lightning and those forces that hold my long dormant mathematical brain cells hostage where to release them and they suddenly snapped into conduction where one plus one no longer equals three, I might consider doing what my father did when he went back to college at near age 60, and ended up teaching at the University Of Alabama.

Roll Tide, by the way.

Then the question of the actual marketability of what would eventually be a 65 year old rookie meteorologist might factor in, as well as the “ABBA Theory”.

An obscure early ABBA song tells of a lady working a mundane job “just a face among a million faces, just another lady with no name.” But she had a secret, as she was part of an amateur ballet company and every Friday night she was transformed into the star of the stage. Monday? Back to being buried in paperwork and being a random face lost in the crowd.

Would she prefer that every day be like Friday? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. “For she knows the fun would go away, if she played every day.”

Being an armchair meteorologist has the advantage of non-accountability. If I miss a forecast, big deal, only the cat and I know. And, he doesn’t say too much.

But our friends at the NWS are held to strict accountability, and broadcast meteorologists catch grief every time General Hospital is interrupted for a storm that effects “the other guy”, not them and woe to all of them if it “unexpectedly” rains on little Demented, I mean little Darling Daphne’s fifth birthday party and picnic.

But, just for fun, not pretending to be “anybody” or claiming any special talent, let’s reveal the Shrouded Sacred Secrets of “Mark’s Roll Your Own Weather Forecasting.”

Before I begin I will say when I look for the ACTUAL forecast I rely on our friends on Weathervane Road, the NWS. They have the experience, talent, dedication, education and resources that let me know that barring the unforeseen quirks of nature, I can rely on their opinions and judgements.

The following suggestions are based on the assumption that you have little or no equipment available. This becomes especially valuable during outdoor adventures, as it lessens your chances of being caught off guard, whether at the beach, the park or in the mountains.

Before beginning ANY adventure check the NWS forecast first. Many, many troubles and tragedies could have been avoided by that one simple little action.

If you are interested in trying “Roll Your Own Forecasting” here are a few suggestions I recommend.

1. Do a little research. Start with a simple, manageable book describing the whys and ways of weather phenomena and how the atmosphere works. It doesn’t have to be a 1000 page tome loaded with mathematical formulae looking like it was written in Chinese.

The book I learned from, which was simple, yet detailed was Weather: A Fully Illustrated, Authoritative and Easy-to-Use Guide (A Golden Guide from St. Martin’s Press) by Paul E. Lehr & R. Will Burnette.

At first it looks like a “child’s book”, but, it has plenty of useful information that is well explained, and is loaded with illustrations that could be considered works of art.

2. Learn your microclimate. Every area has its own little quirks and interactions which will combine to cause variations in actual conditions versus the expected textbook conditions. Hills will alter the wind flow, streams and bogs will alter the humidity levels for example.

Once there was an emergency exercise where K4NWS provided weather updates for a simulated chemical emergency. The Incident Commander would call for weather conditions and I would give him the latest readings from the NWS instruments. At one point he became frustrated and yelled “that’s not what we are seeing down here.” I explained that “conditions at the NWS forecast office may or may not mirror the conditions you see at your location. This is what the conditions are at the forecast office, conditions seen at other locations can and will vary due to variations in terrain.”

He didn’t like that answer of course, but, it was the truth and as they say “I don’t write em, I just read em.”

I’ve experimented by placing instruments in the center and corners of large fields, and all the readings were in some disagreement. Shadows, shading, wind deflection and foliage all combined to give a variation in readings.

What local factors could influence your forecast?

3. Pay attention, notice and learn what normally goes on around you, both weatherwise and otherwise.

We live in a “tuned out” society, with many distractions both good and bad.

Some go about almost in a zombielike state absorbed in their own little virtual world of texting and chatting. This is neither healthy nor safe, as you can become so unaware of what’s going on around you that you become the perfect prey for those who would harm you, either due to greed, hatred, prejudice or just mean low down creepy people “being themselves” by acting mean creepy and low down.

Also, you don’t want to end up like poor Granny Johnson. The booze finally got her. True, she never drank a drop, but, she was blasting the Hallelujah Tabernacle Quartet so loud in her earbuds that she never heard the air horn of the Budweiser truck that sent her to Glory – in a somewhat flattened state.

So tune back in!

I know it may not be as easy as it sounds, because it is such a strong habit, and because it’s so enjoyable. But, tuning back in is even more enjoyable.

As you reconnect with the world around you, you will begin to notice cool little things. Flowers you never saw before, yet they were always there. What the bugs and birds are doing. For instance you notice anthills growing taller as the ants shore them up, they somehow knowing that it is going to rain. You see the birds reappearing in the rain letting you know a storm is almost over. You hear the changing and varying call of the birds, and you learn to admire the ever changing tapestry of the sky and learn the secrets it holds.

The longer you reconnect you begin to sense things about the moods of nature and the creatures in it, almost a sixth sense, as you tap into the primordial instincts that were always there, but, were buried deep within by the continual drone and distractions of modern society.

You will find that world is an exceedingly interesting place.

When gathering information for your forecast, here are some questions to ask yourself,

1. What are the winds doing?

Some broad, general rules are:

North wind cold, South wind hot, East wind foul & West wind fair

But, while these indicators are right more often than they are wrong, the most important forecasting factor is the change in the wind direction, for changes in wind direction indicates a change in the pressure environment, the interaction between high pressure and low pressure systems, which actually end up defining the “weather” that we see. This is especially true when accompanied by a change in the barometric pressure.

The following rules come from various sources, where I got them are lost in the mists and the cobwebs of my memory.

“If the wind is shifting counterclockwise from the Southwest through South to the East and the barometer is falling, a storm system is West to Northwest of your location and will pass near or North of you within 12 to 24 hours. If accompanied by East or Northeast moving clouds, a cold front is approaching. After the front passes expect a wind shift to the Northwest.”

“If the wind is from the East to Northeast and the barometer is falling, a storm is South to Southwest of your location and will pass near or South of your location in 12 to 24 hours. Expect a wind shift to the Northwest via North as the storm passes.”

Once a front has passed the duration of fair weather will be depend roughly on the duration of the pressure rise. If the pressure rise lasts only for a day, the fair weather will not last much longer than a day.

Calm winds, or North winds and high pressure usually indicate good weather.

2. What is the barometer REALLY doing?

Occasionally I will hear broadcast media say “the pressure is 30.00 inches and steady” and I will think “oh, no it is NOT steady, it’s falling. That is the same reading you had at 6PM.”

A secret that one has to consider when reading a barometer is the “diurnal effect” of the barometric pressure. Normally the barometric pressure will rise and fall a little during the day without it having any significance or indicating any outside influence.

The degree of this rise or fall will vary with the latitude, but, generally it will be roughly plus or minus .05 to .06 inches in Alabama.

For example, if the pressure is 30.00 inches at noon, the pressure will normally fall to around 29.95 inches at 6PM, rebound to 30.00 inches at Midnight, fall again to 29.95 inches at 6AM, and so forth.

This is not a true rise and fall, but, a normal variation. So technically in this case for our forecasting purposes, the pressure could be considered “steady”.

An easy way to remember this is that the pressure at noon should be the same at midnight, and the pressure at 6AM should read the same at 6PM. If it is, no change is imminent. If it does move out of this range, then something could be “in the wind”.

Also, the actual level of the pressure, whether high or low does not necessarily indicate what weather could be occurring. I’ve seen it rain with a “high pressure” of 30.45 inches, and have seen it be clear as glass with a “low pressure” of 29.65 inches.

Again, it’s the CHANGE that we are interested in.

What if you don’t have a barometer?

You are in luck in that you can access an entire network of FREE weather stations called the Automated Weather and Surface Observation System.

The Automated Surface Observing System or ASOS stations are operated cooperatively by the NWS, FAA & DOD. This is a primary climatological observing network. Deployment of the system began in 1991 and was completed in 2004.

These stations use a format such as this: “Birmingham Airport Automated Weather Observation. One six five three Zulu. Wind 180 degrees at 7 peak gust 20. Visibility 7. Light rain, mist. Sky condition 700 scattered, 1700 broken, 3500 overcast. Temperature 79, Celsius, Dew Point 69 Celsius, Altimeter 29.64. Remarks distant lightning South West through west. Wind variable between 150 and 230.”

Deciphering this, “one six five three Zulu” is the time 16:53 UTC.

“Wind 180 degrees at 7 peak gust 20” is the wind direction, in this case south. Remember the cardinal compass points: North is at 0 degrees (and 360 degrees), East is 90 degrees, South is 180 degrees, and West is 270 degrees. Then the wind speed is given.

“Visibility 7” is the horizontal surface visibility.

“Light rain, mist” is self-explanatory.

“Sky condition” is the actual measured altitude of the various cloud layers in feet, in this case 700 feet scattered, 1700 feet broken, 3500 feet overcast.

Temperature & dew point are given in Celsius.

“Altimeter 29.64” is the barometric pressure in this case 29.64 inches.

“Remarks” are any other pertinent weather comments, in this case distant lightning is being observed South West through West and the wind direction is wind variable between 150 and 230 degrees.

These reports are very useful in getting an idea of the conditions both now and just upstream of your location.

The following link gives you all of the ASOS Frequencies and Telephone by city or airport for Alabama.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/weather/asos/?state=AL

Now there are a few drawbacks to these stations:

The weather given is the weather where the station is located, and may not necessarily agree with the weather where you are located. As mentioned earlier, wind currents and eddies, trees, unknown or unseen elements all of which make up the microclimate of the location may throw curve balls into the readings.

Cloud layer altitudes are interesting to know. But, they are measured using a laser beam ceilometer that shoots a laser beam straight up & measures return “echo”. This method is good and accurate, but has tunnel vision. I have seen times it would say “clear” and it was really ringing a doughnut hole in an otherwise overcast sky. This device has a maximum range of 12000 feet. Low Altocumuli can be detected; higher altocumulus and cirrus will be missed.

3. What are the clouds doing?

Perhaps the biggest clues to the upcoming weather are the clouds themselves. Each tells a different story.

(At this point I would sorely love to include pictures to illustrate the following. But I am concerned about bandwidth, copy write and newsletter length issues. Just copy the cloud name in your search engine and go to “images” to learn their appearance.)

CLEAR skies indicate no major change is imminent (though nature sometimes will throw a surprise).

CUMULUS – Like shreds of cotton, clouds that are being shredded and torn against a blue sky usually mean fair weather for several hours.

CUMULUS – Chubby, looking like a mound of mashed potatoes, forming sheets or a “field of cumulus” usually indicate fair weather, with the exception of those forming at or before noon, as they indicate instability and possible showers later in the day. The flatter they are, they less likely anything will develop. Towards sunset they can flatten out into STRATOCUMULUS detailed below.

CUMULUS – Looking like cauliflowers or CUMULUS CONGESTUS can bring showers or continue developing into a thunderstorm or CUMULONIMBUS

CUMULUS – Shooting straight up or towering or “TOWERING CUMULUS” indicates thunderstorms are likely.

CUMULONIMBUS – Mountains of clouds, with anvil shaped tops capped by false cirrus – thunderstorms are already here.

STRATUS – Low dense clouds, actually a type of fog. Expect drizzle. Many times they will burn off as the Sun rises during the morning, or ruin a “fair weather” night forecast by forming as a fog bank under a clear sky and hovering near the ground totally obscuring the sky.

NIMBOSTRATUS – A low, rainy layer, dark gray, frequently observed under ALTOSTRATUS. These indicate longer periods of rain, perhaps for hours, but not as long if accompanied by West or Northwest winds. Sometimes they are accompanied by lower detached scud clouds scooting underneath or tendrils and wisps of clouds seen rising off mountain ridges.

STRATOCUMULUS – Large globular masses or rolls arranged in waves or lines. They may lower and fuse together and convert into STRATUS or NIMBOSTRATUS. These indicate “unsettled weather”, which is defined for our purposes as “variable clouds, with slight chances of precipitation, if the precipitation is substantial it will fall for a small part of the period only”.

ALTOCUMULUS – Globular masses, small and flattened usually in lines or waves. The moon or sun often shines readily through them, accompanied by a colorful corona or iridescence. They are often followed by unsettled weather or showery skies.

ALTOSTRATUS – A gloomy gray uniform sheet of clouds, with the sun occasionally peaking though as if looking through frosted glass. Expect rain within 12 to 24 hours if Northeast to Southeast winds are present.

CIRROCUMULUS – Delicate looking small globular masses, sometimes resembling lace, a net or a honeycomb, sometimes looking similar to small altocumulus, but always white with no shadowing. Cirrocumulus in thin patches in association with other high, thin clouds usually means fair weather, while cirrocumulus as part of a thickening layer of clouds is more likely to mean that storms are on the way. I consider these the most beautiful of clouds.

CIRROSTRATUS – A white veil, often merging into ALTOSTRATUS. Increasing means rain is likely, particularly if there is a halo encircling the sun or moon. Expect chances of rain within 12 to 24 hours. Sometimes these clouds are so thin that the sun or moon shines readily through the milky sky.

CIRRUS – Thin, white silky and fibrous. If a few feathery cirrus are floating by it means fair weather today. They occasionally produce sundogs, which may indicate rain within 24 to 48 hours, if the coverage increases. Their distance is deceptive, as they are so high up that they may look as if they are nearby, but, may actually be 50 to 150 miles away, the distance increasing the closer they are to the horizon.

CONTRAILS – The long thin clouds that are formed in the wake of aircraft. Long trails will only form if there is already some moisture in the air; in very dry air they dissolve almost instantly.
If they persist and grow longer, the air is becoming humid. If they persist for hours they can cover the sky and merge into a sort of manmade form of CIRROSTRATUS, indicating a worsening of the weather is to come.

4. What is your radio doing?

By taking an AM radio, tuning it to 530 and listening to the sferics or static crashes you can determine the presence of thunderstorms, the type of thunderstorm (cellular or linear) and with practice using the same receiver exclusively, as differing receivers have differing reception traits, estimate the approximate range or distance of the storm from you.

Cellular storms will have sporadic bursts, while linear storms have a more continuous pattern.

With scattered cellular storms you may hear many bursts, but the volume and sharpness will decrease with increasing distance. A burst resembling the sound of plastic wrap is distant, while a sharp, loud crash means the storm is near.

If one listens to the crashes and plots the storms on radar, they will develop “an ear” as to judging the distance.

This also works on 160 and 80 Meters during the day. It is useless at night however, as the skip zone is too long and you may be hearing storms in Texas.

One oddity I’ve noticed is that static crashes from approaching storms seem to be louder than storms moving away, but, at the same distance. Why, I’m not certain. My best guess is that the rainfall is attenuating the “signal” from the static crash.

Also, a ham who worked the McDonald’s Chapel tornado in 1956 tells me that for days after the tornado there was, as it were, a continuous static field in the atmosphere that made 2 meters almost unusable for hams working the disaster. What they encountered and why, I have never found out nor have I seen any similar reference with other tornadoes.

5. What is your gut telling you?

Sometimes you look at all the factors and still you just have a hunch or feeling that “this and such” is or isn’t going to happen.

Don’t ignore those feelings. They may be valid, based on something you heard or read, now largely forgotten, but still enough remaining in your memory to make you say “wait a minute”.

So, you have gathered all your information. What do you do now?

You write it all down, add it up and since indicators are sometimes contradictory, you usually go with the majority of the opinions. With time you will learn which factors are more accurate for your location and give heavier reliance on them.

The question then comes, how do you judge if you’ve missed the forecast or hit it?

Sometimes it’s easy. You predicted fair weather and it’s sunny. Atta boy!

But, what if your forecast is “increasing clouds, rain in 12 hours”; it becomes black as night with clouds, but, not a drop of rain falls? You got it and but you then again you didn’t get it. 50 – 50.

That’s why I learned to “blur” the forecast a little by saying “increasing clouds, rain POSSIBLE in 12 hours.” If the sky “beclouds” and it is gloomy for the majority of the forecast period, I’ve hit the mark whether it rains or not, as the forecast is mushy enough to not lock me into an “it must rain” scenario.

The question also arises of how long do the conditions have to exist to validate your forecast?

For instance your forecast was “increasing clouds”, which it did from 12 to 4, then suddenly the clouds broke and it was sunny for an hour and then it clouded over again from 5 till six.

The rule I used was “if the forecast proved valid for the majority of the forecast period, two thirds being the cutoff point, it counts.” Unless of course the “missed part” is so important that you can’t discount it. “It was fair weather except for the tornado and flash flood”, for instance.

What is the “forecast period” for my prodigious prognostications? That depends on how many forecasts I make in a day. If I make a forecast every six hours, which increases the accuracy, then my forecast period is 6 hours. If I made a forecast at Midnight & Noon, it is 12 hours, and so on.

There are no “official” rules, you have to make them up as you go and stick to them.

One thing I won’t do, that the pro’s do, is what I heard at an aviation weather seminar, when they spoke of “adjusting the forecast as it starts to ‘slip out of category’”. In other words, they find the forecast is proving wrong, so they quickly change it.

That’s ok for them, and they have to for safety reasons, but, it would be cheating for me.

Also, if you find that in spite of all the indications the forecast is consistently turning out wrong, until the indications start changing, just go with the flow. For instance, everything says “fair” but its rained 8 days straight, and nothing seems to be changing, I’m forecasting rain, regardless of the readings.

I’m not a dummy, you know.

Weather equipment I would recommend obtaining is a wind vane, barometer and thermometer. Or go all out and get a professional grade setup, such as those made by Davis or Lacrosse.

One other item I would get is a booklet that is no longer in print, but, available on Amazon and Ebay called The Sager Weathercaster. This booklet created during World War II by Raymond Sager is basically a weather computer, which you input information about the wind direction, barometer tendency and sky condition on a set of circular disks or dials. The dials then give you a 4 character alphanumeric code that you then look up, which in turn will give you a forecast of conditions and wind directions, which many more times than not will prove accurate.

An online version is available at http://www.weather-above.com/Sager%20Algorithm.html

A similar device is the Zambretti Forecaster developed in Britain by Negretti & Zambra during World War I. It also has a dial arrangement, and is interesting to try, if not as accurate as the Sager Weathercaster. This inaccuracy is due perhaps because of the latitude difference, or because sky conditions don’t factor in, or perhaps simply because the British forecast terminology is vague to me and doesn’t seem to match the US terminology that I’m used to and I can’t seem to reconcile the styles.

For instance I see a forecast of “fine weather”. What defines “fine”? Is it clear, partly cloudy, cloudy with sunshine peeking through or does it mean simply “it ain’t gonna rain?”

An online version is available at http://www.casacota.cat/2×2/predictor.pl

Over the years I’ve discovered that my forecasts are more accurate during the Spring and Fall. During the winter the storm systems move faster, causing the sequence of events to occur faster than “the books” say. In the summer storm systems will approach, giving the usual sequence of events, but then the systems are stalled or redirected by the Bermuda high and they never arrive.

This aggravates me to no end.

Also, it would seem I’m blind to storms approaching from the north. Probably due to terrain features interfering with the local wind field.

“Roll Your Own Forecasts”, which are theoretically valid for a 30 mile radius, are not only practical, but fun!

Why not give it a try?

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Mark’s Almanac

August was originally named “Sextilis”, the sixth Roman month. It was renamed August in honor of Caesar Augustus and lengthened to 31 days, to equal Julius Caesar’s month of July.

August is hot and humid and summer temperatures remain at or near their summer peak.

The rapid vegetation growth of spring is over, and, since conditions are now perfect for the growth of mold, fungi & germs, plants have a “used” look, which is enhanced if rainfall is scarce.

In August the choir of cicadas whine in the afternoon & towards the end of the month the big Yellow Sulphur Butterflies will begin heading to the South-Southeast, giving hints of their soon upcoming fall migration & cats will begin to hint of growing their winter coats.

Hurricane breeding grounds in August are the Atlantic, with Low Latitude “Cape Verde” storms forming off of Africa crossing the Ocean and either threatening the Eastern Seaboard or striking the Leeward Islands, entering the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast. Breeding grounds also include the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

August is second only to September in the number of Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. From 1851 to 2017 there have been 389 Tropical Storms and 245 Hurricanes, 80 of which made landfall in the United States, the most notable storms being Hurricanes Camille and Katrina in 1969 and 2005, which devastated Mississippi and Louisiana and Hurricane Andrew which ravaged South Florida in 1992.

21% of a year’s Hurricanes occur in August, however, 85 to 95% of land falling Hurricanes have not occurred by August 15.

Days grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 74.3 degrees at the beginning of the month to 64.8 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 13 hours 48 minutes on August 1 to 12 hours 43 minutes on August 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

August 1 Sunrise 6:00 AM Sunset 7:47 PM
August 15 Sunrise 6:09 AM Sunset 7:33 PM
August 31 Sunrise 6:20 AM Sunset 7:14 PM

Looking skyward, at the beginning of the month, Mercury is lost in the afterglow of sunset. On August 8th he will be at “Inferior Conjunction” or lie almost directly between the Earth and the Sun, and as the month progresses will reappear above the Eastern Horizon before dawn.

On August 29 He will reach his highest point above the Eastern horizon or “Greatest Western Elongation” when he will be 18.3 degrees from the Sun. This is the best time to view Mercury since he will be at his highest point above the horizon in the morning sky. Look for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise.

Due to quirks in the Earth’s orbital interaction with the orbits of the other planets and the varying angles of observation through the year, sometimes the other planets appear to travel backward through the night sky with respect to the stars of the zodiac. This is an optical illusion called “apparent retrograde motion”. From July 26 to August 19, if one were to plot Mercury’s position in reference to the background star pattern, he would appear to be moving backwards against those background stars. Though this is more noticeable with the outer planets, it is barely noticeable in Mercury’s case. This feat will be repeated from November 17 to December 6.

Venus shines brightly in the west during twilight –4.2, in eastern Leo. She is getting a little lower every week in the Northern Hemisphere as her orbit tilts in favor of viewers in the Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, and now sets around the end of twilight. In a telescope Venus is a gibbous disk 61% sunlit.

On August 17 she will reach his highest point above the Western horizon or “Greatest Eastern Elongation”, when she will be 45.9 degrees from the Sun. This is the best time to view Venus since it will be at its highest point above the horizon in the evening sky. Look for the bright planet in the western sky after sunset.

Mars made his closest approach to Earth on the night of July 26th. At magnitude -2.8 the blazing reddish planet is very prominent; in fact he is currently the brightest object in the late night sky, even brighter than Jupiter as he drifts through Capricorn.

You will see Mars appearing low in the southeast near the end of twilight. After dark he rises higher and shifts southward, in a weird orbital anomaly like no celestial object you normally see. Mars is highest in the south, giving the best telescopic view, around 1 a.m. daylight-saving time.

The dust storm that still blankets the Martian globe has started to thin a little, allowing faint, low-contrast views of some dark surface features.

When discussing Mercury I mentioned his “apparent retrograde motion” or backwards motion across the sky. Mars is doing this celestial skating trick also. Since Mars close approach with the Earth on July 26, Mars has also been moving retrograde and is passing the stars he passed by over two months ago, except in reverse order, and will reenter Sagittarius.

On August 28th Mars reaches its Western Stationary Point, or the point where he appears to not be moving at all, and then will begin a normal direct or prograde Eastward motion once more and the planet will begin to head back towards Capricornus, which he will re-enter on September 1st.

Jupiter shines brightly at magnitude –2.2, in Libra, in the south-southwest in twilight.

Saturn, passing above the Sagittarius Teapot glows at magnitude +1.0. Look for the yellow planet in the south just after dark. It’s to the upper right of much brighter Mars.

Uranus, magnitude 5.8, at the Aries-Pisces border is high in the southeast in the hour before the first light of dawn.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius is high in the south in the hour before the first light of dawn.

Pluto, poor Old Pluto, the demoted Dwarf Planet, glows dimly at magnitude 14.2 just above the “handle” of the Sagittarius Teapot. Though now known a Dwarf Planet, I still think he deserves his pedestal in the Elite Nine.

But, since he has been relegated to the Funky Five, and I have included him, I’ll include his four buddies Eris, Ceres, Haumea and Makemake also.

Dwarf Planet Eris, which NASA initially labeled as the “Tenth Planet” and was temporarily named “Xena” after “Xena The Warrior Princess”, shines at an even dimmer magnitude of 18.8 lying just South of Uranus, between Cetus and Pisces.

Dwarf Planet Ceres, magnitude 8.8, is in Leo in the West in the twilight, not far from Venus.

Dwarf Planet Haumea, magnitude 17.7, is high overhead in Bootes at midnight.

Dwarf Planet Makemake, magnitude 17.2, is high overhead in Coma Berenices at midnight.

The origin of the name of the constellation Coma Berenices, which means “Berenice’s Hair”, has an interesting story behind it.

Legend has it that Egyptian Queen Berenice II’s husband Ptolemy III Euergetes went on a dangerous mission during the Third Syrian War. Worried for his life she swore to Aphrodite that she would cut off her hair if the goddess brought him safely home. Upon his safe return, she fulfilled her promise and cut off her hair placing it in Aphrodite’s temple. But, her hair disappeared the next day.

This made the King furious.

To appease him, the court astronomer Conon said that Aphrodite was so pleased with Queen Berenice’s offering that she had placed it in the sky, pointing to a small group of stars he hoped the King had never noticed, which pleased Ptolemy III and from that day since the group of stars that has been known as Berenice’s Hair.

The moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on August 10, when she will be 222,502 miles from Earth.

On August 11 the Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky, which is known as New Moon. This phase occurs at 9:58 UTC or 4:58 AM CDT. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

There will be a Partial Solar Eclipse on August 11. A partial solar eclipse occurs when the Moon covers only a part of the Sun, sometimes resembling a bite taken out of a cookie. This eclipse will be visible in parts of northeast Canada, Greenland, extreme northern Europe, and northern and eastern Asia. It will be best seen in northern Russia with 68% coverage.

The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks on the night of August 11 & 12, with 50 to 60 meteors per hour. This shower, produce by debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1862, ranks as the best of the best, famous for producing bright meteors. The shower runs annually from July 17 to August 24. It peaks this year on the night of August 11 and the morning of August 12.

With the shower coinciding with an invisible New Moon, this should be a great show! Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Perseus, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

The moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on August 23, when she will be 252,118 miles from Earth,

August’s Full Moon will occur August 26 at 11:57 UTC or 6:57 AM CDT. August’s Full Moon was called “Fruit Moon” in Cherokee Folklore, “Women’s Moon” among the Choctaw, “Sturgeon Moon” by the Algonquin because the large sturgeon fish of the Great Lakes and other major lakes were more easily caught at this time of year. This moon has also been known as the Green Corn Moon and the Grain Moon and at one time was called “Dog Days Moon” by the Colonial Americans.

Finally, in December we will be greeted by a (hopefully) bright comet, Comet Wirtanen. On December 16 it will pass 7,220,000 miles from Earth and is expected to reach magnitude 3, easily within visible range and large, being so close to the Earth.

Now some comets, well-advertised, end up being cosmic duds, so while I have my hopes up, I also will keep in mind the fizzles of the past. Such as the much heralded “Comet of The Century” Comet Kohoutek” which proved to be a yawner in 1974.

3774 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of July 19, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

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I’m looking for articles and suggestions and ideas for articles for our newsletter. What would you like to see? Send suggestions to wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Thanks for your help!

This month’s meeting will be on August 14 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

Hi everyone & an early Happy 4th of July!

I hope you are staying cool and hydrated as we wind our way through the heat of Summer.

Our next ALERT meeting will be July 10, when our new Officers take office. Let’s make sure to support, help and encourage them as they steer ALERT into the future.

Dues time also arrives with the July meeting.

So join me as I dust off the wallet, shoo away the moths and cough up some dough, so I will remain current.

Speaking of remains, or remaining, that is, I will be continuing as Newsletter Editor.

Articles and suggestions for articles are welcome and encouraged.

Remember, this isn’t “Mark’s Newsletter”. It’s YOUR Newsletter.

Thank you in advance.

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ALERT Election Results For June 2018 – May 2019
By
Casey Benefield, NZ2O

Good afternoon everyone!

The election of officers for ALERT happened at our Tuesday, June 12, 2018 meeting. This was from the election being tabled, by motion of the members, at the May 8th meeting.

THANK YOU, to all of the officers and board members for your service to ALERT, NWS, other hams, and our communities in the past year.

The results are as follows, by vote of acclamation (only nominations made/no challengers voiced at the meetings).

These officers take their official position in July, per the bylaws:

NZ2O: Also included, is a quick description the roles of each officer according to bylaws. I’d say we have been in pretty good shape from last year!

We have a few things to do, to get the year underway.
• Secretary
Justin Glass, N0ZO
Roles in Bylaws:
Maintains the official minutes of meetings of ALERT.
Maintains copies of bylaws and keeps a record of all changes to the bylaws.
In the event of the President and VP becoming unable to fulfill the office of President, the Secretary would hold the office for the remainder of the term or until a special election can be held to fill the vacancy.
• Treasurer/Membership
Bill Rodgers, K4FSO
Roles in Bylaws:
Receives all monies, and maintains accurate record of all receipts and expenditures.
Reports activities and treasury status at each monthly meeting, including regular/emergency expenditures.
Maintains member roster and collects dues, notifies members of dues becoming due.
• NWS Liaison
Russell Thomas, KV4S
Roles in Bylaws:
Serve as the official contact person between ALERT and the NWS for issues/changes in radio operations that need to be addressed by ALERT/NWS.
Keeps and updates the official callout lists and schedule.
Upon NWS request, issues call-outs to the NWS, coordinates the response/shifts.
If needed, contact responders and remind them of scheduling.
Provides NWS with a ‘callout tree’ of personnel who may initiate callouts, in the even the liaison officer is unavailable.
• Vice President
Johnnie Knobloch, KJ4OPX
Roles in Bylaws:
Assists President in duties.
In event that the President is unable to perform duties of office, the VP steps in to perform the duties in absence, and if necessary becomes President and holds office for the remainder of the term.
• President
Casey Benefield, NZ2O
Roles in Bylaws:
Appoints the nominating committee of 2 members in March for next election.
Presides/conducts all meetings.
Votes only in case of tie at regular meetings.
Secures meeting space for meetings.
Appoints committees for specific tasks, be a member of committees.
Appoints non-elected officers

Next steps:
• President names appointed officer positions (coming soon):
o Operations (Off-site events)
Roles: Resolves any communications problems outside the NWS (repeater, link trouble).
This officer has charge over ALERT-owned computer and communication equipment, with leeway to modify, repair, augment or enhance ALERT’s capabilities as he sees fit.
The Operations and NWS Liaison Officers shall work to keep the training officer informed of any new procedures and equipment, to keep members updated.
o Public Information (Social Media Engagement)
Roles: Be a liaison between ALERT and news organizations.
Currently, this includes web/social media engagements, as our involvement with the news is somewhat limited.
o Training
Roles: Maintain and update the procedures manual for operations at the National Weather Service.
Provide workshops at the NWS to all Operational Members of ALERT, intended to provide hands-on training in the operations of the K4NWS station Amateur Radio and computer equipment.
As new equipment and technology is adopted, the training officer shall provide update briefings or trainings to members to keep them aware of the changes.
• President names new board of directors (coming soon):
Casey Benefield (President)
Dale Chambers (Immediate Past President)
A two year member.
A one year member.
The board of directors reviews challenges to membership approval, member standing, discipline, constitutional amendments submitted to the board (to present to membership), hardship review for dues, and conducts any other ALERT business not delegated otherwise in the bylaws.
Meetings are held every June, September, December, March, or any time the President calls a special session.
*Board meetings, except for executive session, are open to ALERT’s voting membership.
• There has been no motion to update ALERT’s formal written budget at this time.
If such a motion is made by a member of ALERT, the budget is to be reviewed by old and new officers of ALERT along with expenditures from previous year, agree on a new budget, and vote in August.
• The board of directors appoints or continues the trustee of the K4NWS callsign.

It’s an honor to work with you all, and an even higher honor to continue that work.

73,

Casey Benefield, NZ2O

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.

Tales Of Old School CW
By
Mark, WD4NYL

I’m on many Facebook Groups. Many are outdoor survival and emergency preparedness related, though, I do not consider myself a “survivalist” or a “prepper”, as society loves to label folk. I just like having knowledge that will “stack the deck” in my favor if life or nature throws a curveball my way and though I don’t get out there much, I dearly love the outdoors.

I am on several radio groups also, both shortwave, ham and don’t tell anyone….on a CB radio group.

Recently on one of the ham radio groups a gentleman from China who was using a computer program to copy CW, was mystified by much of what he received. The transcript revealed that much was unrecognizable gibberish, but two items kept reappearing which prompted his question “what is the meant of ‘5NN’ and ‘TU’?”

I explained that “5NN” is the signal report “Five Nine Nine” & “TU” is “Thank You”, and noted that CW readers or CW deciphering programs can sometimes have trouble decoding manually send CW signals, because everyone’s sending pattern or “fist” on CW, whether using a keyer or a straight key is different, as it varies depending ones hand strength, flexibility and or the weight they use to “pound the brass”. Also the character spacing and length is slightly different for each person and that on CW nets, operators hearing the same stations over and over can tell who is sending just by the rhythm and quirks of the signal.

This took me back in time to the mid 1980’s when my quest for my Worked All States Award was detoured by me getting involved and absorbed into CW traffic nets. The Worked All States quest I have yet to accomplish, even after 40 years of hamming, due to too many nets, too much VHF and too little HF.

I was Net Manager of the old Alabama Emergency Net Delta, the statewide slow speed CW traffic net, which met on 3.725 MHz. There were about 15 operators and usually we would have 7 or 8 check-ins, which was normal.

As the 5:30 PM net time approached, out of the static came the letters “ARF”. Then someone would bark back “ARF, ARF”. Other nights a chicken would appear “dit dit dit……..dit dah”, “dit dit dit……..dit dah”. Then someone might “meow” back. Then the net would start.

We all knew who was doing what. Harris, WA4JDH in Elba was the initial “barker”. His signal was distinct as it was so very perfect and precise. Being a radio operator for 40 years in the US Navy helped him perfect the art.

The guy barking back was Jake, WA4UCT. His signal was distinct in that he sent with a “heavy fist”. The dashes were slightly longer than the normal “three times longer than a dot” rule. This I liked as, as I could copy it better. In the beginning I had trouble telling an S “dit dit dit” from a U “dit dit dah”, as the ARRL tapes, to me anyway, sent the dashes too short, barely longer than the dot.

The clucking chicken was a gentleman named Red, W4DEU, whose signal had a slight chirp, and the cat was rumored to be me. But, I’ll never tell, as the cat’s got my tongue.

Every station had a slightly different sounding signal. Some were recognizable by the rhythm, some by them being just slightly off frequency, but, always at that same frequency or tone. For we tuned signals to where it suited our ears and not to a “zero beat”, as they would say.

This worked fine on CW nets, but not as well on phone nets.

On the Alabama Traffic Net Mike one Net Control, Bert W4IBU had a very deep base voice and people not knowing this would tune to where his voice would have a normal midrange sound. This of course put them way too high on Bert’s receiver making them sound like Donald Duck. Bert would get aggravated and shout “ZERO BEAT THIS FREQUENCY”. This was of course impossible to do on sideband, as sideband signals don’t have a steady tone to match or “zero beat” against. Only an AM or CW signal do. Today they just say “please tune to this frequency.”

One of our members, Elmo, K4VLL, I saw copy by ear 55 Words Per Minute in a CW contest at the 1982 Birminghamfest. He didn’t win the contest, however, as he couldn’t write the words fast enough at 40 Words Per Minute, and a guy who could write faster won at 45 Words Per Minute. Elmo, who always wore a Styrofoam Chinese Coolie hat covered with QSL cards, said “let’s keep going and see what I top out at.” 55 Words Per Minute sounds like teletype, yet Elmo, at 83 years old just closed his eyes and read it back word for word.

It was a fun time. That crazy group of nuts, most of whom are now silent key, proved that you can have just as much personality, distinctiveness, personal expression and fun on CW, as you ever could on voice.

With that I bide you 73 and a hearty, ARF, ARF, ARF.

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Mark’s Almanac

Originally called “Quintilis”, the fifth Roman month, Quintilis was renamed “July” in 44 BC in honor of Julius Caesar.
July is miserably hot, as land temperatures reach their peaks in late July through early August – the Dog Days of Summer.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists the traditional period of the Dog Days as the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11.

The Romans on the other hand said that the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24, or, alternatively, from July 23 through August 23, coinciding with the Sun and the Dog Star Sirius rising at the same time & their combined heat supposedly adding to the summer misery.

As you endure this heat, remember to drink lots of fluids, hug the shade & avoid the afternoon sun.

Also please resist the temptation to take Fido for a walk during the heat of the day. Remember that the “official” temperature readings are taken 6 feet above ground level. It’s much, much hotter on the ground where Fido & Puss have to walk with bare paws, where it could easily be 150 degrees.

Before taking Muttley for a walk, place your hand on the pavement and see how hot it is. If it’s miserable to you, it will be miserable to him also. Just walk him in the morning or wait until the sun is setting and it cools off to a tolerable level and try to stick to grassy areas. Then go have a good time together.

The last week of July is usually the hottest week of the year. Tropical conditions are dominant, with conditions similar to that of the Amazon Valley.

This is the time to test the “Brown Grass Theory”. According to this theory, if the grass remains green the temperature will probably not reach 100, but, if the grass turns brown, get set for triple digits. This is a local Birmingham rule, which the Old Timers at the Birmingham NWS, such as Frank Makosky and J.B Elliott used for years.

In July the least rainfall falls in the Northern Hemisphere.

Tornado activity drops sharply, with a 47% decrease nationwide. July has an average of 103 tornadoes.

Hurricane activity increases, but major hurricanes are not yet frequent. By months end, one hurricane will have occurred. Seven percent of a year’s hurricane total occurs in July.

Long track hurricanes are possible, forming off the African coast and crossing the Atlantic, either to threaten the US East Coast, then eventually veering off towards Bermuda. Or in the case of “Low Latitude” storms, cross the Atlantic, strike the Leeward Islands; enter the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast.

From 1851 to 2017 there have been 120 Tropical Storms and 55 Hurricanes, 25 of which made landfall in the United States.

Among notable storms are 2005’s Hurricane Emily, the only Category 5 storm to form in July, reaching 160 MPH and striking Mexico.

Hurricane Bertha, a 125 MPH storm holds the record for the longest lifespan for a July hurricane, churning for 17 days.

July Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

Days grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon decreases from 79.4 degrees at the beginning of the month to 74.6 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 14 hours 20 minutes on July 1 to 13 hours 49 minutes on July 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

July 1 Sunrise 5:41 AM Sunset 8:01 PM
July 15 Sunrise 5:48 AM Sunset 7:57 PM
July 31 Sunrise 5:59 AM Sunset 7:47 PM

Looking skyward, Mercury (about magnitude –0.4) is visible in bright twilight about 20° lower right of Venus. Catch it in the narrow time window between when the sky is still too bright and when Mercury sinks too low and sets.

Mercury will reach his highest point above the horizon or Greatest Eastern Longation on July 12 when he will be 26.4 degrees from the Sun. This is the best time to view Mercury since it will be at its highest point above the horizon in the evening sky. Look for the planet low in the western sky just after sunset.

Mercury will reach his farthest distance from the Sun or Aphelion on July 20.

Venus (magnitude –4.0, in Cancer heading toward Leo) shines brightly in the west-northwest during twilight and just after. In a telescope Venus is a 72% sunlit gibbous disk.

Earth will reach her farthest distance from the Sun or Aphelion on July 6, when she will be 9.4508 million miles from our home star.

Mars (magnitude –1.9 in Capricornus) rises only about an hour after dark. Mars is highest in the south, in best view for telescopes, just before the first light of dawn.

On July 27 Mars will be at Opposition, or its closest approach to Earth and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. It will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. Closing to within 35,994 million miles from Earth, this will be the closest distance since the record closest approach of 34,646 million miles in 2003.

This is the best time to view and photograph Mars, especially the summer hemisphere which is in mid spring.

A medium-sized telescope will allow you to see some of the dark details on the planet’s orange surface.

Or perhaps I should say you would be able if the planet wasn’t in the middle of a widespread dust storm.

In May, just as Autumnal Equinox greeted the southern hemisphere of Mars and just as the Red Planet began to inch into the evening sky, a swath of bright, yellow dust clouds lit up over the dark feature called Mare Acidalium. Within days, the gale had moved south and expanded, covering an area greater than the continent of North America, including the length and breadth of the sprawling Martian canyon system Valles Marineris.

There are signs that the storm is losing strength, but poor visibility of much of the surface should persist for a long time.

These dust storms, the cause of which is not certain, are not rare, moderate size ones occurring every year and global storms having occurred in 2007, 2005 & 2001.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.4, in Libra) shines in the south in twilight and starts to decline in the southwest later in the evening.

Saturn (magnitude 0.0, just above the Sagittarius Teapot) glows low in the southeast in twilight. It stands highest in the south around 1 AM.

Uranus (magnitude 5.9, at the Aries-Pisces border) is in the east just before the beginning of dawn.

Neptune (magnitude 7.9, in Aquarius) is in the southeast just before the beginning of dawn.

New Moon will occur 9:58 PM CDT July 12 or 2:48 UTC July 13. The Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

There will be a Partial Solar Eclipse, which is an eclipse which covers only part of the Sun, sometimes resembling a bite taken out of a cookie on July 13. However this eclipse will only be visible in extreme southern Australia and Antarctica.

The moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on July 12, when she will be 222,098 miles from Earth.

The moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on July 26, when she will be 252,415 miles from Earth,

July’s Full Moon occurs July 27 at 3:22 PM CDT or 20:22 UTC and is called “Buck Moon” in Native American folklore. This moon gets its name because the male buck deer begin to grow their new antlers at this time of year. It has also been called “Full Thunder Moon” & “Hay Moon”.

There will be a Total Lunar Eclipse on July 27 visible throughout most of Europe, Africa, western and central Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Western Australia, but, not a speck of North America.

The Delta-Aquariad Meteor shower peaks on the night of July 28th into the morning of the 29th.
This shower annually occurs from July 12 through August 23 is made up of debris from Comets Marsden Kracht and produces a ZHR or Zenith Hourly Rate of 20 meteors per hour.

The nearly full moon will be a problem this year, blocking out all but the brightest meteors. But if you are patient, you should still be able to catch a few good ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Aquarius, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

Also, though it won’t peak until the night and morning of August 12 & 13, the Perseid Meteor Shower begins July 17, and lasts until August 24. This shower, associated with comet Swift-Tuttle will peak at 60 meteors per hour in August.

3735 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of May 31, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

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This month’s meeting will be on July 10 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

If for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083.

Hope to see you there!

Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter
wd4nyl@bellsouth.net

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database
www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/