Hi Everyone,

I hope you made it through Thanksgiving and Black Friday unscathed or only slightly bruised. December will be a busy month for ALERT, as we look forward to Skywarn Recognition Day and the ALERT Christmas Party.

Skywarn Recognition Day was developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service and the ARRL to honor the contributions that Skywarn volunteers make to the NWS mission – the protection of life and property during threatening weather.

During the Skywarn Special Event, hams will operate from ham equipped NWS offices. The object of the event is for all participating Amateur Radio stations to exchange contact information with as many NWS stations as possible on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, and 2 meters plus 70 centimeters. Contacts via repeaters are permitted.

Starting at 6PM Friday December 2nd, the ALERT Team will bring up K4NWS as part of this special event and will operate until Saturday December 3rd at 1PM.

We will be operating on all bands & radios in the Forecast Station including 2-Meter, 220, 440, and D-Star,

We will be setting up an expeditionary HF system in the conference room with portable antennas in the yard.

Because of space limitations, this will be an ALERT Operational Members Only event.

Immediately following the event we will be celebrating the ALERT Christmas Party!

Johnnie, KJ4OPX is coordinating this event, which will feature ham, for the hams.

If you are available to help with the SRD, please respond to the callout that will be issued and also please coordinate with Johnnie in advance of the Christmas party at wxjohnnie@gmail.com.

Come on down and be prepared to have Christmas fun!

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Using Mirages For VHF / UHF Communications

You are driving along on a hot summer day. As you round a curve the road stretches ahead as far as the eye can see. Up ahead, maybe a couple of hundred feet ahead you see a pool of water in the road. You keep waiting to drive through it, but, you never reach it, as it seems to stay tantalizingly just ahead.

You are seeing a mirage.

In the desert, mirages have caused lost travelers to wander for miles trying to reach the illusion of cool water so they could relieve their parched throats. Other types of mirages have also allowed explorers to see distant lands far beyond the horizon.

Mirages occur when light rays are bent or in some cases trapped by layers of air of differing temperatures.

There are two basic types of mirages, an “inferior mirage” and a “superior mirage”.

These terms have nothing to with the quality of the mirage, but, rather which direction a light ray is bent.

An inferior mirage occurs due to the sharp temperature difference between warm or hot air at a low level and cool or cold air at a higher level, such as hot desert sand or road pavement beneath cooler air. This arrangement will bend light rays slightly upward making objects at higher altitudes appear beneath a lower object, for instance the blue of the sky appearing in the middle of a road. The image is distorted due to turbulence and usually inverted, so that it appears like a pool of water.

A superior mirage occurs when cold air is overlaid or trapped by warm air, which is a temperature inversion. In this case the light rays are bent downward, and the mirage appears above the true object. In some cases if the boundary between cold and warm air is sharp enough the light can be reflected off the boundary, back toward the ground, and reflected by the ground towards the boundary, or become trapped between layers of air, and follow the curvature of the earth making far distant objects appear on the horizon. Some believe this is how the Norsemen knew that Greenland existed and how once reaching Greenland they knew another larger landmass lay farther to the west, now known as North America.

I’ve seen this once myself, when the temperature in Birmingham was in the low teens. The mountains toward Blount County had an exact reflection, albeit upside down hovering above them.

What, if anything, does this have to do with radio communications, you may ask?

This mirage effect is the exact same process that creates our VHF and UHF band openings. In radio terminology we call it “tropospheric ducting”. A fancy name for what is basically a radio mirage.

Radio waves and visible light are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum and subject to the same rules, quirks and limitations. The only thing that makes visible light special is that we have organs that can detect the “visible” portion of the electromagnet spectrum, and further resolve the wavelengths into the primary colors. Below visible light lie infrared, microwave and radio frequencies. Above are ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays and perhaps other realms yet to be discovered.

Using filters and electronic processing we have blurred broad view into the infrared and ultraviolet range. Is it possible that the infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths are also divided into “colors” beyond our ability to detect? Who is to say not? Perhaps just as sound waves have octave after octave or harmonic after harmonic, you could have octave after octave and harmonic after harmonic of unseen colors. Just because you can’t detect something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. For instance, you can’t see the magnetic field that moves a compass needle, yet it’s there.

For example, Wilhelm Röntgen didn’t invent X-rays; he just discovered something that had been there all along, but, until then was beyond our ability to detect.

Think of the question you ask when you see your dog or cat looking up and visually tracking something moving across the room, but, you see nothing. We can’t see anything, but, they obviously can. They can see things we can’t, just as they can hear things we can’t, which is why we use dogs as guard dogs. So it’s not as far-fetched a notion as it may seem.

But, that’s Mark’s Theory, for which my Nobel Prize has not yet arrived, and I’m drifting far off topic.

Our VHF/UHF band openings usually occur during two conditions. The first being when a cold front pushes through the area. Cold fronts are not shaped like a huge wall of cold air, but, rather a rounded boundary that tends to lift up the warm air ahead of it. This lifting process forces convection causing thunderstorm development and creates temperature inversions which create band openings.

Another, far more frequent occurrence, especially in the heat of late spring, summer and early fall, is around sunrise when the sun heats the upper levels of the atmosphere as it rises, but, the lower levels are still cold.

Every morning around sunrise you have a natural temperature inversion and a band opening. The opening may be a just few minutes or it can last for hours.

This can be a good thing, or a bad thing.

Many years ago, during the 1980’s when the Shelby County repeater first went on the air, finding a good frequency pair was a challenge due to interference with distant repeaters during band openings. One frequency pair they tried was 146.985 input / 146.385 output. Subtones weren’t widely used back then, during the Stone Age of crystal controlled 2 meter radios, and during a band opening the repeater would lock onto another repeater in Kentucky with the exact opposite frequency pair, and keep transmitting until they timed each other out, and then repeat the process over and over again all morning. Finally they chose the 98 frequency which they use today, which cured the problem.

Similarly, in the 70’s and 80’s the BARC repeater was on 146.94, with an input of 146.34, and was commonly referred to as the “34 94” repeater. The current repeater, 88, was privately owned by Ronnie Pitts. The only other repeaters back then were Hop Hayes & Henry Wingate’s 146.76 repeater, which they donated to HARC, the 147.74 “Hueytown Repeater” now on Red Mountain, a now defunct repeater on 147.94 & a short lived repeater on Lloyd Nolan Hospital In Fairfield on 146.66. The Lloyd Nolan repeater was ordered taken down by hospital authorities convinced it would interfere with hospital telemetry, which for some reason they didn’t seem to worry about with their own HEAR (Hospital Emergency Ambulance Radio) system, with which they talked to paramedics on 155.34 MHz. Fortunately such thinking has largely been overcome as witnessed by the very successful HCARC.

Anyway, frequently during severe weather outbreaks the band would open and BARC’s 94 and Huntsville’s 94 would interfere with each other. This problem was solved when 88 was donated to BARC. The 88 & 94 repeaters were identical, so they swapped crystals & 88 became the primary BARC repeater. 94 changed frequencies to 145.41 & later became the K4DSO D-Star repeater.

The younger generation of hams of the 70’s and 80’s, which would have include myself, the Spanos brothers, David Black, and others of our generation would stay on the BARC repeater. We were young, and assured by the older hams on the other repeaters that ham radio was dying and that we were the prime reason why. They didn’t like the FFC test we took nor did they like the way we conducted ourselves on the air, and were not hesitant to let us know. But, the truth was, we really didn’t do anything wrong, we were just young and acted young, and that made some, but, certainly not all, folk uncomfortable. In fact some told us we were the best entertainment on radio.

That generation of hooligans later founded SCARC, and ALERT and ended up being Presidents and officers of BARC, SCARC, ALERT and the state ARRL.

Back on topic, during these openings it may be possible to conduct usable communications with a distant repeater or station up to 800 miles away.

There are obstacles to overcome though.

If you attempt to communicate on a repeater using the same frequency as a local repeater, the local repeater will override the distant repeater. If the distant repeater uses a different subtone than that of the local repeater, you can use it until someone keys up the local repeater. Repeaters with no local competition are a piece of cake, as is simplex point to point operations. Simplex contacts, incidentally, are the only ones beside satellite contacts that count for the Work All States Award.

How far up and down the radio spectrum can this effect reach?

I have heard commercial FM stations in Oklahoma in the 89 MHz range and back in the days of analog TV, have seen distant stations on TV channel 2 just above the 6 Meter band. Can it extend another 20 MHz to the 10 Meter band? Maybe.

One article I read says this effect at UHF ranges is “nil”. I know this is bunk, because I’ve heard it numerous times on 440 MHz, and of course have seen visible mirages.

This is the effect of superior, downward bending radio mirages. What about the inferior, upward bending ones?

At midday VHF/UHF radio range decreases. This was explained to me through the years that as temperature increased; the air molecules absorbed the signal. Maybe this is true. But, I also wondered since warm air is less dense than cool air, why a warmer thinner atmosphere would absorb more signals than a cooler denser, higher humidity atmosphere?

Another possibility is that the signal is being bent skyward by the inferior mirage effect, just as visible light is. In this case, if you are transmitting a 50 watt signal, and 30 watts of it are being bent skyward, then only 20 watts is hitting your target area.

Then factor in the same distortion you see when you see objects shimmering in the heat. If the radio signal is subject to the same effect, then your remaining 20 watts is a signal being distorted and “blurred” or scattered by the heat, causing even less usable signal at the repeater site.

Another atmospheric effect is that the atmosphere near the horizon acts like a lens and bends light and radio signals over the horizon. This sometimes will cause the silhouette of distant mountains to be seen in front of the setting sun. With radio signals the effect is that the “radio horizon” is 15 % farther than the geographic horizon.

That is assuming you have an unobstructed horizon. If a mountain blocks the view of the horizon you are out of luck. Or are you?

Back in the 80’s I made and erected a cubical quad antenna for 2 meters. From my location I had never been able to hit the 76 repeater, I assumed due to the hills around Birmingham Southern College. With my beam my first target was 76, and much to my disappointment I still could not hit the repeater. One day I was swinging the beam and suddenly the repeater came in full scale. This is how I discovered that if I “off aimed” 30 degrees to the south towards Red Mountain, the mountain range would act as a reflector or “passive repeater” and I could “see” around the hills and hit the repeater.

Knowing these effects add more tools to your ham radio “bag of tricks”.

Try them and see how they work for you, as you chase that elusive VHF/UHF Worked All States Certificate.

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Mark’s Almanac

December was the tenth Roman Month, from whence it gets its name. Among many Native American tribes it was called “the moon of clacking rocks”, as it was the time when they prepared and manufactured stone tools, implements and weapons, since the growing season being over, and bad weather prevented them from hunting.

December is the cloudiest month of the year, with only 40 to 60% of possible sunshine poking through the clouds. It is also the stormiest month of the year for the Continental US & the Gulf of Mexico. By “stormy” meaning large-scale storms, not necessarily the tornadic storms that they bring, even though we are still in the Second Tornado Season.

A region of heavy rainfall usually forms from Texas to Northwest Florida to Tennessee and Arkansas. Cold waves bringing rain, snow, ice and occasionally tornadoes, sweep across the region.

December can be cloudy and cold, and, then it can swing into spring like warmth, luring plants to bloom early, only to have the frosts and freezes return and the plants are “nipped in the bud”.

Hurricane season is now “officially” over, however Mother Nature sometimes throws a surprise in to make life interesting. Since 1822 there have been 8 Category 1 hurricanes that either lasted into or actually formed in December. The last December hurricane being Hurricane Epsilon during the 2005 season, the year in which we ran out of hurricane names. That year also featured Tropical Storm Zeta, the latest forming Tropical Storm which formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 7, 2006.

Looking towards the sky, Mercury, magnitude –0.5, is tucked in the glare of the sunset at the beginning of the month but by December 11 it will have risen to its highest point in the sky, or “greatest eastern elongation” of 20.8 degrees above 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.

Brilliant Venus, magnitude -4.2, shines brightly as the “evening Star” in the southwest during and after twilight.

Mars, magnitude +0.5, glows in the south-southwest at dusk, 25 degrees upper left of Venus, as he crosses central Capricorn.

Jupiter, magnitude -1.8, rises around 2 or 3 AM and shines brightly in the southeast in Virgo by early dawn.

Saturn, magnitude +0.5, is hiding deep in the glare of sunset, 30 degrees lower right of Venus, in Ophiucus The Serpent Bearer.

Uranus, magnitude 5.7 in Pisces is high in the southeast shortly after dark.

Neptune, magnitude 7.9 in Aquarius is high in the southern sky shortly after dark.

3414 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of November 17, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

The Geminid Meteor Shower, peaks on December 13-14. Geminids are one of the year’s best meteor showers. It is my favorite meteor shower. It’s a consistent and prolific shower, and usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the more widely recognized Perseids of August. This shower typically produces 50 or more multicolored meteors an hour, or about one every minute.

As a general rule, the dazzling Geminid meteor shower starts around mid-evening and tends to pick up steam as evening deepens into late night. No matter where you live worldwide, the greatest number of meteors usually fall in the wee hours after midnight, or for a few hours centered around 2 a.m. local time. If you’re game, you can watch the Geminid shower all the way from mid-evening until dawn.

This year we will have one major drawback, as the nearly full moon will block out many of the fainter meteors this year, but the Geminids are so bright and numerous that it could still be a good show.

The Geminids is produced by debris left behind by an asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon, which was discovered in 1982. The shower runs annually from December 7-17. It peaks this year on the night of the 13th and morning of the 14th.

Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Gemini, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

Full Moon occurs at 00:06 UTC December 14 or 6:06 PM CST on December 13. As with last month’s full moon, this will also be a “Supermoon”, the moon being at its closest approach to Earth, and may appear slightly larger and brighter than usual. This will be the last of the three supermoons of 2016. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Cold Moon because this is the time of year when the cold winter air settles in and the nights become long and dark. This moon has also been known as the Moon Before Yule and the Full Long Nights Moon.

Winter Solstice will be December 21 at 10:44 UTC or 5:44 AM CST. The South Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the Sun, which will have reached its southernmost position in the sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.44 degrees south latitude. This is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Ursid meteor shower, a minor meteor shower, will peak on the night and morning of December 21 – 22 producing about 5-10 meteors per hour. It is produced by dust grains left behind by comet Tuttle, which was first discovered in 1790.

The shower runs annually from December 17-25. The second quarter moon will block out many of the fainter meteors. But if you are patient, you might be able to catch a few of the brighter ones before hypothermia sets in.

Best viewing will be just after midnight from a dark location far away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Ursa Minor, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon occurs December 29 at 06:53 UTC or 12:53 AM CST when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky.

Looking towards the sky, the stars of Winter have begun drifting into the night sky. Low in the southern sky is the bright star Fomalhaut.

Whenever Fomalhaut is “southing” (crossing the meridian due south, which it does around 7 p.m. now depending on your location), the first stars of Orion are just about to rise in the east, and the Pointers of the Big Dipper stand vertical straight below Polaris, towards The North Star.

Orion is also valuable as a rough navigation aid as the two left stars forming the elongated square forming Orion always lie on a general north / south line, and the bottom two stars of the square lie on a rough east / west line.

‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

Christmastime is a time of wonder & mystery. A time of bright lights, shining trees and the time of hide and seek, as presents are hid from inquiring minds and fingers.

A time one’s mind and memories drift back to days of childhood, and Christmases now long gone by. Remembering friends and family, some here, some now gone & longing that they were near once again, as it was once upon a time not so long ago. And, it is a time when, if we allow ourselves and don’t choose to “Grinch out” and be sour pusses, we can become kids once again.

Most importantly though, it’s a time to remember that the true “reason for the season” occurred in a manger, long ago on that first cold and chilly “Silent Night.”

So as you go about your Christmas preparations remember the magic that was there when you were a child & don’t let that magic die. Make it magic once again

For Christmas truly is “the most wonderful time of the year”.

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This month’s meeting will the Chritmas Party on December 3 at 1PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter

www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/

Mark’s Weatherlynx
Weather Resource Database

Hi everyone,

Halloween is upon us. My idea of a good Halloween is to buy lots of candy, turn off the lights; pretend I’m in Tucson and then eat every stinking piece.

I’m not being selfish. Really I’m not.

I figure that I’m actually doing a vital public service by doing this. Just think of all the dental bills that parents won’t have to pay for their children thanks to my noble sacrifice.

At any rate, I hope you have a good Halloween and I hope to see you at our next ALERT meeting, which will be on Election Day, Tuesday November the 8th.

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2016 Simulated Emergency Test Results
The Simulated Emergency Test (SET) which was held on October 15 was a great success, both for ARES and ALERT. A callout was issued for the SET by NWS Liaison Russell Thomas, KV4S at 1:44PM October 13.
ALERT Responders were Casey Benefield NZ2O, Justin Glass N0ZO, Ronnie King WX4RON, Michael Lamb KK4OHW and Roger Parsons KK4UDU.
The following are excerpts from Casey’s After Action Report:
“OVERVIEW
(From SET Script Overview) This year’s statewide SET event is being conducted to simulate our communication response to a Category 5 Hurricane making landfall near Ft. Walton Beach, FL, travelling due north. The NWS requested us to share our coverage maps that indicate where we have operators who can provide information in advance of weather emergencies. The target is to produce maps that indicate where our operators, repeaters, and primary served agencies are located, as well as the capability of contacting and passing messages to and from each county EMA representative.
In addition to the original purpose of SET, ALERT responders would be tested on what we might do to establish an operational station by the start time of the event at 13:00 UTC (12:45 UTC for ideal start time), in the event of radio station damage, or in this case a dismantled station due to renovations being done.
EVENT TIMELINE
* 11:45 UTC – Arrival, NWS Sign-in and Briefing, Equipment Unload/Setup. Event/photos announced on social media, to show how amateur radio works when the primary communication station fails.
* 12:55 UTC – Station in conference room brought online. Capabilities/set-up as follows:
o Equipment (NZ2O): 115AH Gel Cell (Not Used), Astron RS-20, ICOM ID-5100 (VHF, UHF, Analog/D-Star), 100FT 50 Ohm Coax, Comet GP-1 Dual Band Base Antenna, Pofung GT-5, Baofeng BF-F8+, Channel Master Tripod, military mast (1 guy ring, 4x 4ft Pieces – 16 ft, antenna at approximately 17 ft, total height approximately 21 ft), 66ft of non-galvanized guy wire, 3 stakes. Tools: Hammers for stake install/removal. Multi-tool for cutting/dealing with guy wires. Gloves for handling fiberglass. Consumables: Electrical tape, for cable wrapping, orange safety flag tape, to flag the guy wires for safety reasons.
o Equipment (WX4RON): Laptop PC, Wouxum VHF/UHF Radio, Bridgecom 220MHz Radio for EMA contact.
o Equipment (N0ZO): Ultrabook PC, Internet Access Point for NWSChat, Cross-band repeater to KK4BSK (146.76MHz) in vehicle, ICOM D-Star Capable VHF/UHF Radio.
o Reachable Repeaters/Frequencies: 146.76 (Main), 146.88, 147.32, 146.98, 145.35, 146.58S, K4DSO D-Star
o Unreachable, Monitored Repeater: 147.39 (Jasper, AL)
* 15:40 UTC – NWSChat Test Messages, with Mary Keiser’s guidance.
* Approximately 16:30 UTC – Net Control Stations declare this SET session to be complete. ALERT/K4NWS advises Net Control Stations on 146.76/146.88 that the station is standing down, as courtesy to Net Control.
* Approximately 17:10 UTC – Temporary station being dismantled, returned to owners.
OUTCOMES
K4NWS was not online at the pre-planned 12:45 UTC, but we only missed by 10 minutes. We were online before the SET exercise began at 13:00 UTC. An acceptable result.
* The reason for this appears to be our initial choice of a site for the antenna support was too close to the building, and there was a lot of coiled excess cable, which might have resulted in degraded station performance/air-choke behavior. The antenna was moved more to the front of the building, which also likely eliminated the building as a source of line-of-sight interference.
We also were working with new guy-wire, which had not been cut to the proper length prior to the event. It will be useful in the next event, and it may be a good idea for temporary station antenna guy wires to be pre-cut. Today was a sunny and clear day, but measuring, cutting, and putting together the same in dark or rain conditions would have made it much more difficult. Note: It is not safe to work with an antenna during a storm with thunder.
* If this were a real emergency, we may be well-served by first establishing cross-band repeat operations first, and then have the temporary antenna and support structure being worked on afterwards.
* For the temporary station that we deployed today, we were on street power, but capable of emergency power by both gel-cell battery and the permanent on-site generator. The cable was run through a wire conduit to the outside, from the conference room. The NWS’s conference room computer was not used.
* A headset/earpiece in a multi-radio, multi-operator setup might be helpful for clarity/noise level.
K4NWS was ready for reports, and conducted test reports with NWS. The standard Local Storm Report form was used, and the reports were also entered in NWSChat as a test.
* As part of our storm reports, let’s be reminded that the time that an event occurred is important to the meteorologist, and may be different from the time that the report is received.
o SKYWARN® spotters are trained to wait until danger has passed, if any, to provide reports.
o Meteorologists might find the event time useful, when comparing a report with data or other reports.
o This demonstrates and reinforces the value in re-taking/refreshing our SKYWARN® storm spotter training once yearly, or more.
* NWSChat Best Practice shared by Justin (N0ZO): Have a notepad window up, and type the report up in full in that notepad. This prevents accidentally pressing enter, which immediately sends messages. This may also assist, by giving the operator a template to work with, reducing time typing messages. Note: In many cases by procedure, unless responding to a callout/severe event at home, the LSR form is handed directly to meteorologists, instead of NWSChat.
K4NWS’s temporary station was dismantled within 30 minutes, without incident.
Both the temporary station and the cross-band repeater worked well for the entire event. No uncommon occurrences took place.”
This test demonstrates clearly the resilience of ALERT and our capability of providing emergency communications under emergency conditions. I’ll add that if needed, HF capability could be added in “on the fly” just as successfully as VHF/UHF communications were.
I wish to say “thanks” to our responders.
You “did us proud”.
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K4NWS Operational Again
As mentioned in Casey’s After Action Report, the NWS office has been undergoing renovations, and as a result K4NWS has been temporarily out of commission as the cubical was modified to fit the new office scheme.
Roger, KK4UDU went by the office and tested K4NWS and everything appears to be operational again. He made successful contacts on 146.76, 147.140, 146.88 (on both the Alinco and the ICOM), 440 (the Shelby Co 440 input into the 146.88), and was able to activate the repeaters on 220 and D-Star.
He reports “we have an operable station again.”
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Mark’s Almanac

With the arrival of November we enter our second tornado season. Alabama and the Southeast are “blessed” by being the only area on Earth having two tornado seasons. And, the cause of the second season is the same as the spring season – clashes of cold and warm air masses. The cold air of winter is invading and trying to push the warmth of the summer back into the sea, which is the same process of springtime.

This second season is often more destructive than the spring season. So beware of a warm & muggy November day. Especially one with a south wind, as something may really be “in the air”.

The Hurricane threat greatly diminishes, with hurricane activity occurring mainly in the open Atlantic, threatening the Eastern Seaboard, but usually veering off into sea as cold fronts off the East Coast deflect them. Hurricanes can still form in the Caribbean, which usually visit the Yucatan, but can enter the Gulf.

Hurricane season ends November 30.

November Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

The blooms of summer have faded, but you may find yourself still sneezing, due to ragweed and mold.

Mold is a fall allergy trigger. You may think of mold growing in your basement or bathroom – damp areas in the house – but mold spores also love wet spots outside. Piles of damp leaves are ideal breeding grounds for mold.

Oh, and did I mention dust mites? While they are common during the humid summer months, they can get stirred into the air the first time you turn on your heat in the fall. Dust mites can trigger sneezes, wheezes, and runny noses.

November welcomes the peak of fall colors. For Birmingham the peak occurs around November 15, but the date can vary depending on your elevation & latitude.

Indian Summer and Squaw Winter continue to battle it out, but the cool or cold weather will eventually win, with the first average frost being on November 11.

The usual fall effects occur in North America with Canada’s Hudson Bay becoming unnavigable due to pack ice & icebergs. Navigation in the Great Lakes becomes perilous due to storms bringing the “Gales Of November” made famous in the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”.

And, don’t be surprised if you hear ducks overhead & see wedges of Canadian geese heading south for the winter. And if you see strange birds appearing in your front yard, remember that for 336 species of birds Alabama IS south for the winter.

Looking skyward, Mercury is hidden in the glare of the Sun

Venus shines low in the Southwest at evening twilight, at magnitude -4.0.

Mars glows at magnitude +0.3 in the south-southwest at dusk, 40 degrees upper left of Venus.

Giant Jupiter, magnitude -1.7 is low in the east in the early dawn.

Saturn, magnitude +0.5 is low in the southwest about 4 degrees above Venus as evening twilight fades.

Uranus, magnitude +5.7 in Pisces is well up after dark in the east

Neptune, magnitude +7.8 Aquarius is also well up after dark in the southeast.

The Taurid Meteor Shower will occur the night of November 4 & 5. This is a minor shower producing only 5 to 10 meteors per hour. It is an unusual shower in that it consists of two separate meteor streams. The first stream is dust grains left behind from Asteroid 2004 TG10, while the second stream is debris from Comet 2P Encke. The shower runs from September 7 to December 10, but, peaks overnight on November 4 & 5. The first quarter moon will set just after midnight leaving the skies dark for viewing the shower. The meteors will radiate from Taurus, but, can appear anywhere in the sky.

Full Moon will occur at 13:52 UTC or 7:52 AM CST November 14. November’s Full Moon is called “Beaver Moon” in Native American folklore, because this was the time of year to set the beaver traps before the swamps and rivers froze. It has also been known as the Frosty Moon.

This will be a Supermoon, as the Moon will be at its closest approach to the Earth and may appear slightly larger and brighter than normal

The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs from November 10 – 21 and peaks on the night of November 16/17. Though the Leonids are an “average shower”, producing only an average of 15 meteors per hour, they are well known for producing bright meteors and fireballs.

This shower is also unique in that it has a cyclonic peak about every 33 years where hundreds of meteors per hour can be seen. That last of these occurred in 2001. The Leonids are produced by dust grains left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865.

Its productivity varies per year, but it can deposit 12 to 13 tons of particles across the planet. Which is why having an atmosphere to shield us is such a nifty thing.

A waning gibbous moon will block many of the fainter meteors, but, you should be able to catch the brighter ones. The meteors will radiate from the constellation Leo, but, can appear anywhere in the sky.

New Moon will occur November 29 as the Moon is located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun. This phase will occur at 12:18 UTC or 6:18 AM CST.
.
3402 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of October 27, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

Finally, don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour at 2 AM, Sunday morning November 6nd, as Daylight Savings Time ends.

Remember that according to the National Time Act of 2014 states you MUST wait until 2 AM to reset your clocks, or you will be in violation of Section 15, Paragraph 114, Subset 195485 (24(234b)) (see page 4537) of said act.

I saw it on social media, so it must be true. For NO ONE would post unverified muck on the internet, oh perish the thought.

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This month’s meeting will be on November 8 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 everybody and welcome to the October ALERT Newsletter.

October has arrived, and the dead grass that was once my front lawn reminds me that we are as dry as the Mohave Desert.

Thunderstorms, tornadoes and flooding seem either a distant memory or far into the future, when in fact our second severe weather season is only five weeks away.

So, with this preface I will ask a simple question.

Are you still prepared?

You see, we humans are reactive creatures. We make plenty of emergency plans AFTER a disaster has struck. But, as time passes and memories fade, so does our focus on personal emergency preparedness.

As October is the month for the Simulated Emergency Test, which we will discuss in a couple of minutes, why not do you own a quick test? Think of this as a “Simulated Emergency Test On The Cheap”.

Ask a family member to pick a date & time, not telling you of course when, and on that date and time they go to the breaker box & flip the switch.

For the test to be a realistic test it should be during the last 15 minutes of the finale of that mini-series you’ve been watching for the last five months. Or the end of that John Wayne movie when he has 3 bullets and 300 Apaches closing in. Or that ball game that’s in the bottom of the 15th inning, with the bases loaded. Or, dare I say, before the Imodium kicks in? You know….the usual times that the telephone decides to ring off the hook

Anyway, “poof”, you are in the dark.

Do you know where the flashlight is? Does it work? Is it once again full of that mysterious green powdery goop that was once upon a time, long, long ago, was a set of batteries?

Where is your HT? Is it charged? Have you charged it this year? This decade?

More importantly, if this were the “real deal” could you and your family reach your “place of safety”? Or do you even have a “place of safety” planned?

How ready are you really?

Notice that none of these questions pertain to callouts, deployments, or any other “official” EMCOMM activities. For your emergency preparedness must always begin and focus at home.

For you can’t deploy with any emergency group if you are dead or desperately trying to dig your family out of the rubble.

So the time to prepare is now. Prepare, and to stay prepared.

Knowledge is the most perishable commodity that exists. So read and reread those books you have. Take courses and refresher courses. Recheck & rethink your vulnerabilities and plans.

Take the time to take the time. For you and your family are certainly worth the effort.

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2016 ARRL Simulated Emergency Test

The ARRL Simulated Emergency Test is an annual exercise in emergency communications, administered by ARRL ARES Emergency Coordinators and Net Managers. Both ARES and the National Traffic System (NTS) are involved.

The SET weekend gives hams the opportunity to focus and hone emergency communications capability within their community while interacting with NTS nets.

The purposes of the SET are to:

1. Determine the strengths and weaknesses of ARES and NTS, the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) and other groups in providing emergency communications.

What methods, equipment and protocols do or don’t work? What changes need to be made to adjust to changing times, technology and resources, such as available repeaters? Old repeaters disappear and new ones appear on a regular basis. Are we depending on a repeater that no longer exists, while another repeater with twice the range is in an area, but we don’t know about?

Also, it provides an opportunity to demonstrate to our served agencies, such as the NWS, the EMA, and Red Cross as well as the public and news media, the value that Amateur Radio provides, particularly in time of need.

And, to help radio amateurs test their equipment and gain experience in emergency communications using standard procedures and a variety of modes under simulated emergency conditions.

This year’s SET will be divided into small segments of time so that we can maximize our ability to get as many hams and served agencies involved.

This test will differ from tests of previous years in that it will involve three separate tests.

The NWS and the state EMA have expressed a need to know the actual, not theoretical, effectiveness of Amateur Radio in contacting a county and surrounding counties EMA offices and the ability to reach the State EMA in Clanton via Amateur Radio.

I’ll mention at this point a little known fact, is that since the State EMA Office is underground, most cellphones will not work. So this is a good example of why “when all else fails, there’s Amateur Radio”.

The schedule for the 2016 SET is as follows:

The first part, which is limited to a designated county liaison, the particular county EMA and the NWS, will occur Friday October 14 from 15:00 to 17:00 UTC. This will NOT be open for general ham participation.

The second part, which will be the traditional SET for ham operators, will be Saturday, October 15 from 8:00 to Noon, using standard procedures including VHF/UHF county emergency nets, ALERT and the various EMA offices.

This year’s scenario involves a Category 5 Hurricane which strikes near Ft. Walton Beach Florida and moves northward through the center of Alabama. This is reminiscent of Hurricane Opal’s path in 1995.

Sunday evening, October 16 will be the HF portion of the SET during the normal time slot for the Traffic Net Mike on 3.965 MHz LSB, at 18:30 UTC. The SET events of the day will be reviewed and the NCS will provide updates and request the participants to provide information related to their activity in the SET events, including, whether they have 2 meter capability, emergency power capability, mobile capability and a list of successful contacts with adjacent counties.

ALERT will be active during this event and your participation is needed.

Watch for the callout and if you are available to volunteer (and I hope you are), please contact our NWS Liaison Russell, whose contact information will be included in the callout notice or via Russell@kv4s.com and “step up to the plate”.

It’s is a worthwhile effort and a good training exercise.

I hope to hear you on the air!

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Mark’s Almanac

“This place gets more rain in 12 months than some places get in a year” – Russell Coight – “All Aussie Adventures” 2001
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 leaf, 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. But after the second half of the month the activity will begin a steady decrease.

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

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.

Looking towards the sky, at the beginning of the month Mercury shines at magnitude -0.8 low in the East about 45 minutes before sunrise.

Venus shines at magnitude –3.9 is low in the west-southwest at twilight. Start looking for her about 25 or 30 minutes after sunset.
Mars, at magnitude 0.0, is passing above the Sagittarius Teapot in the south-southwest at dusk.
Jupiter is hidden behind the Sun.
Saturn, magnitude +0.5 is far to the left of Mars at dusk, in the southwest; with the red star Antares twinkling at magnitude +1.0 a little to the left and 6 degrees below the sixth planet.
Uranus shining at magnitude 5.7, in Pisces is well up in the east after nightfall is complete. The blue-green planet will be at its closest approach to Earth on October 15 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. This is the best time to view Uranus, but, due to its distance, the planet will only appear as a tiny blue-green dot in all but the most powerful telescopes.
Neptune shining at magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius also is well up in the southeast after nightfall.
October’s first New Moon occurs October 1 at 00:11 UTC or Central Daylight Time being five hours behind, at 7:11 PM CDT on September 30.

Using the UTC format this would means October has two New Moons – more on this later.

The Draconid Meteor Shower will peak on October 7. 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.

The first quarter moon will block the fainter meteors in the early evening. It will set shortly after midnight leaving darker skies for observing any lingering stragglers. 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

October’s Full Moon will occur October 15 at 04:23 UTC or 11:23 AM CDT. This month’s moon is “Full Hunter’s Moon” so named by Native American tribes 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.

This Full Moon will be a “Supermoon”, the first of three for 2016. The Moon will be at its closest approach to the Earth and my look slightly larger and brighter than usual.

This isn’t that usual. Contrary to social media, the moon won’t be a “glorious orb looming in the heavens”, and I doubt it will have any “prophetic implications” concerning the upcoming November elections, though I do believe it may be an omen that my beloved Cubbies will make it to and WIN their first World Series since 1908.

The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on October 21 & 22. This shower, which runs from October 2 to November 7, is produced by the broad debris trail of Halley’s Comet. Halley’s Comet is set to make its next closest approach to Earth, a much closer approach than the distant passage in 1986 when it and the Earth were on opposite sides of the solar system, on July 28, 2061. I will be 103 years old. So mark your calendars T-Minus 55 years and counting!

Earlier we mentioned the New Moon occurring on the night & morning of September 30 & October 1.

Basing this event on UTC instead of CDT, so it won’t mess up the article I’m writing, October’s second New Moon occurs October 20 at 17:38 UTC or 12:38 PM CDT, when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky.

You may remember that a second of Full Moon in a single month is popularly called a “Blue Moon”, but what about two New Moons in a single month?

A second New Moon in a month is a “Black Moon”.

Now a more persnickety definition, is the third Full Moon in a season which has four Full Moons is a Blue Moon and the third New Moon in a season which has four New Moons is a Black Moon.

By this definition, the next Black Moon will occur October 21, 2017.

A third definition says a Black Moon is a month with no Full Moon, which will occur in February 2018.
Which means both January and March 2018 will have two Full Moons or Blue Moons.

A fourth definition states that it is a month with no New Moon, which last happened in 2014, and will next occur on February 2033.

No one writes songs about Black Moons. “Black Moon, you saw me standing alone….”
It just doesn’t “sing”,

3388 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of September 15, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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This month’s meeting will be on October 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

Hi everyone,

Do you have any plans Sunday night?

If not, or if you can squeeze it in, I cordially invite you to join the ALERT Sunday Night Net.

This net, formerly the BARC Sunday Night Net meets every Sunday at 7PM on 146.88 MHz. Glenn Glass, KE4YZK, formed the net about 19 years ago and I took over as Net Manager from Mark Nichols, K7NOA in 2001. BARC has since then donated the net to ALERT for ALERT promotion and visibility.

The ASNN is a “discussion net” and at times we try to slip training snippets in concerning net operations and what the NWS and ALERT does and doesn’t need reported.

We have a dedicated staff of Net Control Stations:

David Hanna – WX4NCS
Jackson Chance – KK4NGD
Dale Wisely – N4HEY
and every now and then Mark WD4NYL

One thing to be stressed is that this net is NOT an emergency net and won’t be activating for emergencies. One should always respond to your local ARES / Skywarn Net when situations arise.

Should the ASNN be in session and a severe weather arise, it will, as it has in numerous cases in the past, clear the frequency for the Jefferson County ARES Emergency Net.

So, once again, if you are available (carry an HT into the choir loft, the minister won’t mind), give the net a try.

I think you will like it!

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Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Birmingham AL
1151 AM CDT THU SEP 1 2016

…NWS Birmingham Webpage Changes Coming September 27th…

On September 27th, 2016, the look and feel of our webpage will be
changing. On this date, our office, along with all Southern Region
NWS Weather Forecast Offices, will migrate to a new layout on the
front page of our web home page. This is in response to a required
web infrastructure consolidation that will occur by the end of the
year. The change will also provide office-to-office consistency
because the layout of the home page will be set across the region.

In addition to the new front page layout, all webpage links will be
changing. You can visit the following webpage for more information
on the forthcoming changes: http://w2-mo.weather.gov/bmx/webpagetransition
We will be updating this page with new information as we approach
the transition date.

Our office is working hard to ensure that the transition will be as
painless as possible, but as with any major change, there are going
to be some initial growing pains. To assist with the transition, a
webpage re-direct will be implemented for high-priority webpages for
at least a few months after the transition date.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as
we go through this major transition. If you have any questions or
concerns, please contact our webmasters at sr-bmx.webmaster@noaa.gov

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Spy & Numbers Stations Decoded

Radio in its various forms has always been a fascinating hobby to me. My first exposure to radio, other than me having the AM radio blasting music, was listening to my brother, Sonny K4FHX’s ham radio, and the weird sounds emanating from his speaker. When he got out of the hobby in the early sixties he gave me his equipment. But, I was six years old, and of course I destroyed every piece of that Hallicrafters gear. All that is left today is the Speed-X straight key, which I still use to this day.

My next exposure to radio was with my Uncle Luther’s shortwave radio, listening to the strange squeaks and squawks and some tick-tocking station with a guy saying “thirteen hours forty five minutes Greenwich Mean Time”.

Seeing that I was hooked, my parents gave me a Ross shortwave radio the Christmas of 1972.

I would stay up into the wee hour of the night listening, usually with the lights turned off, so my parents wouldn’t worry why I wasn’t asleep, listening to stations all over the country and all over the world.

The radio did not have a beat frequency oscillator or BFO, so I was unable to listen to sideband signals. All I heard were people who sounded like they were gargling with wet socks.

One of the mysteries of those days was something called “Spy and Numbers” stations.

These would come on at irregular intervals up and down the band, but, usually just below the 40 meter band. They were always in AM, and though I have heard them in English and German, the strongest were in Spanish, usually female, with a strange regularly spaced clacking sound in the background.

The typical format was as follows:

Either at the top or the bottom of the hour after about 20 minutes of a carrier with that strange clacking sound, the call would begin something like this:

“Attencion, attencion…..quatro cinco uno…..quatro cinco uno…..quarto cinco uno…
uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres……repeata….. uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres…..fine…fine…”

And then the signal would disappear as mysteriously as it had appeared.

What were these signals?

The leading theory was that they originated in Cuba and were being sent to covert operatives in the US. But, nothing could ever be proved.

Until now.

Recently Dateline NBC had the story of an ex-Soviet spy who defected and fell off the radar and for decades lived and raised a family using an assumed identity. In the story he said he received his instructions “from numbers given in Spanish on a shortwave radio from Cuba”.

Mystery solved. But, how did it work?

The following is what I was told by a gentleman, now deceased who was in the Air Force OSI – Office Of Special Investigations. I feel safe describing this because many years have passed and technology has progressed to where things are delivered via “other means”.

The code was an unbreakable code.

To use it you simply needed two people with two identical books, with the same publisher and edition. Which book didn’t matter really. It could be Macbeth, The Gospel of Luke, The ALERT Newsletter, etc.
They just had to have the same page number, paragraph and word location.

The first three numbers given after the “Attencion” was the operative’s number.

The long sequence of numbers told where to look in the book.

“uno ocho sies ocho quatro ocho tres uno tres” or in English “106040313”

Which mean Page 106, Paragraph 04, Line 03, Word 13

They would simply write down the numbers and look them up in the book.

But, which book? That’s what made it unbreakable. Only they two parties involved knew which book, and they would change that on a regular basis or as needed.

Let’s say Agent 008 (that’s 007’s clutzy partner) needed money. He might use the Gideon Bible, and choose:

“my God will meet all your NEEDS according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” and then
“For the love of MONEY is the root of all evil…”

After deciphering the page, paragraph and locating words 7 & 5 the recipient would that know Agent 008 “needs money”.

And so ends the mystery of the Spy & Numbers stations.

This is 008 signing out…

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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 combination 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.

September Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

Looking towards the sky, Mercury is fading and disappearing into the sunset, below Venus and Jupiter. By the end of the month he will reappear in the morning sky and will reach his highest point above the eastern horizon on September 28, when he will be 17.9 degrees above the Sun. This is the best time to view Mercury since it will be at its highest altitude above the horizon in the morning sky. Look for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise.

Venus and Jupiter are very low in bright twilight, shining at magnitudes –3.8 and –1.7 respectively. Venus is creeping a little higher each night and Jupiter sinks farther to Venus’s lower right. Their separation grows by 1° per day.
Mars, magnitude –0.3, in upper Scorpius is moving rapidly eastward away from Saturn, magnitude +0.4 and the red star Antares, magnitude +1.0, below Saturn. Look for them in the southwest after dusk. The triangle they make is again widening.
Uranus shining at magnitude 5.8, in Pisces is well up by midnight in the southeast.
Neptune shining at magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius also is well up by midnight in the south. Neptune will be at his closest approach to Earth on September 3. Due to its extreme distance the giant blue planet will appear as a tiny blue dot in all but the most powerful telescopes.
New Moon occurs September 1 at 4:03 AM CDT when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky.

There will be an annular solar eclipse on September 1, but, it will only be visible from Africa.

An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is too far away from the Earth to completely cover the Sun. This results in a ring of light around the darkened Moon. The Sun’s corona is not visible during an annular eclipse.

Fall begins at Autumnal Equinox on September 22 at 9:12 AM CDT, when the Sun crosses directly over the equator and night and day is approximately the same length.

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 16 at 2:05 PM CDT. 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”.

There will be a penumbral lunar eclipse on September 16, but, it will only be visible from Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, Asia & Western Australia.

A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s partial shadow, or penumbra. During this type of eclipse the Moon will darken slightly but not completely.

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.

3375 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of August 25, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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This month’s meeting will be on September 13 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