“There is no tornado in that storm” my English teacher sarcastically told us. “I’m from Kansas, and IF there were a tornado in that storm, there would be hail. There’s no hail.” What prompted the concern of my classmates and I that April day was the skies darkening pea green color and the rapidly increasing wind. Unknown to us, the students on the bottom floor of my school had correctly been told to crouch down in the hallway, while we teenage miscreants on the top floor of the high school were told nothing, except to “hush” and everything was business as usual. We were unaware that the F5 tornado which would become known as the “Smithfield Tornado” was passing us, two miles to the north. The next day the teacher wasn’t particularly interested in discussing her forecasting abilities, even though we were VERY eager to discuss it. “Hush”, she said, free speech being stifled again. April weather in Alabam Continue reading →

Hi everyone, I hope this finds everyone doing well. Hopefully you were able to attend the 2013 Birminghamfest this weekend. The hamfest was well attended and we were treated to a great Skywarn forum on Dual-Pol Radar given by NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist John DeBlock. It was good to see many of our members, and reacquaint with old friends, including one who I haven’t seen since the 9th grade, and good to put faces with the voices I hear on the Sunday Night Net. Revisiting the Sunday Night Net for a second, it’s interesting to remember back in 2001 when I started as net manager and we usually had three check-ins. Now we average 40 to 50 on a consistent basis. Over the years the net has had very few complaints. The most frequent complaint is that the net runs too slowly. “Could you speed it up a little?” Of course I’ve also been told it’s too fast, people use wrong phonetics, no phonetics, “tell folk not to check in if they have weak signals”, so forth and so on. I’ve heard it all. As Net ManagerI Continue reading →

If the NCDC is right, maybe they can still use the critters anyway, by flipping the theory around, so if he predicts warmth, you go with winter & vice versa. I think this is called “Inverse Forecasting”. Looking towards the sky, Mercury is reappearing from the glow of sunset and day by day will become easier to see. Using binoculars, look for him on a clear evening starting about 30 minutes after sunset, just above the west-southwest horizon. Venus is buried deep in the glow of sunrise. Mars is very near Mercury, though fainter. On February 7th and 8th, they pass less than 1If the NCDC is right, maybe they can still use the critters anyway, by flipping the theory around, so if he predicts warmth, you go with winter & vice versa. I think this is called “Inverse Forecasting”. Looking towards the sky, Mercury is reappearing from the glow of sunset and day by day will become easier to see. Using binoculars, look for him on a clear evening starting about 30 minutes after sunset, just above the west-southwest horizon. Venus Continue reading →

Hi everyone, This month’s newsletter will be shorter than usual as well as being little tardy. The ALERT website has been moved to a new more advanced and secure server at Cahaba Internet. This required a new callout and general email list, which are now operational. The new website https://alert-alabama.org/blog/ is operational, but, “under construction”. Russell, KV4S, is working on the website features, and on transferring some of the old “relevant” content from the old site to the new site. Russell is looking for some images, preferably weather related, for the site. If you have any decent to high quality images, with a width of 1000 pixels and a height of 288 pixels please send them to Russell. Congratulations are in order for the National Weather Service forecast offices in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Jackson, Mississippi, which have been awarded the Department of Commerce Silver Medals for their efforts during the tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011. The Continue reading →