ALERT NEWSLETTER – February 2009 Vol. 2 No. 8http://www.alert-alabama.org Hi Everyone, Next month begins our spring severe weather season. Now is the time to take the time to review your emergency preparedness plans and for brushing up on your skills – including both communications & stormspotting. Now is the time to prepare, don’t wait until the sirens sound. It may be too late then. In preparing, you should ask yourselves these questions: Is my family shelter (and everyone should have one) ready? Is my equipment ready? Antennae up & radios working? Batteries charged? Are my communications channels open? Including RF, Internet & telephone resources. Can I receive weather bulletins & the ALERT callouts that will come? And, a reminder to all ALERT members, that all responses to the NWS are done on a callout basis. We want and welcome Operational members to take active roles in callouts. But, always coordinate with NWS liaison issuing the callout – Nathan or Russell before responding to the NWS. This a Continue reading →

ALERT NEWSLETTER – January 2009 Vol. 2 No. 7 Hi Everyone, I hope you all had a good Christmas & that 2009 treats you well. The first thing I’ll comment on is the Spotterchat. Activity during the last storms has been good & interactive, with, people chatting & good reports coming in. This I’m glad to see. As you probably know, the prototype IEMChat will be terminated on February 3 and replaced by the new NWSChat. So, if you are an Operational Member, please be sure to sign up for a NWSChat account by that date. See https://nwschat.weather.gov On another note, if you are a user of radar provided by the College of Dupage, they have had serious problems with their server, which they are close to resolving. It you haven’t tried the COD radar, once they get it fixed, you should. They provide displays not available on the NWS website. Multiple radar angles, storm relative velocity, storm radial velocity, 1 hour precip, storm total precip, vertical integrated liquid, storm echo tops and more. And, when the NWS site is slow or down due to overload during storms, COD will still be up and will be faster than the NWS site. Continue reading →

Hello everyone. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving & that you had no ill effects from being stuffed like the turkey you ate. Christmas is just around the corner. And, if you want to buy your President ham gear or weather instruments, I will be gracious and accept. Soon a New Year will be upon us & with this New Year will be some changes. One change, which has already taken place, is Jody Aaron taking over for Darone Jones at the NWS. We aggravated Darone so much that he went running and screaming to the hills under the pretense of being promoted to the NWS Western Regional Headquarters. Now we can “give the treatment” to Jody. Congratulations to Darone. And, Jody – get ready. Skywarn Recognition Day is Saturday December 6th and ALERT still needs volunteers to work the station. So far we have been under whelmed with volunteers. This Continue reading →

ALERT NEWSLETTER – November 2008 Vol. 2 No. 5 Hi everybody and welcome to the November ALERT Newsletter. Ever wonder why some decisions and positions are made and who actually makes them? Well, maybe it would be helpful to describe our Totem Poles. The National Weather Service is ALERT’s served agency. ALERT must abide by the NWS rules and mandates & tries to the best of it’s abilities to fulfill the NWS’s wishes & assist in it’s mission to save lives. The NWS is mindful that we are limited in what we can do since we are a volunteer organization & that, as in my case, while I would love to “do weather” all the time, my employer might have other ideas on the matter. The NWS in Birmingham is subject to the rules and wishes of the Southern Regional Headquarters & the mandates of Washington DC. Whether they agree with a Regional or National level decision doesn’t really matter. They have to do what their “bosses” say, just as we as we have to do what our bosses say at our work. So, if the NWS inB Continue reading →