ALERT NEWSLETTER – November 2014

Hi everyone, I hope this finds you well, as you prepare for the upcoming Hobgoblin attack which will occur this Friday. There are a couple of scheduling notes that you should be aware of. The first one being that due to Veteran’s Day, this month’s ALERT meeting has been moved up one day to Monday November 10. There will be a Board of Directors meeting preceding this regular meeting. Also, ALERT will conduct a training session for Operational Members on Saturday November 15 around noon. Do understand that this is not a Skywarn or Stormspotter class. It is training to familiarize our members with the equipment at K4NWS in preparation for the fall severe weather season. We have new radios for 2 meters, 440 & 220 MHz, have had computer upgrades and have new monitors in our cubicle as well. Instead of having 3 small monitors we now have 2 large ones that are 22 or 24 inches wide. Please make plans to attend. As the time to learn to operate the equipment is BEFORE a severe weather episode, not during “the heat of battle”, of a tornado outbreak. I hope to see you there. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Useful iPhone Apps For Ham Radio, Emergency Preparedness and Other Applications (Thanks to Roger KK4UDU) Repeater Book Free Amateur Radio Repeater frequencies, PL Tones, and offsets – based on a distance from your current location. Settings can be adjusted for difference bands, modes, distance, etc. Echo Link Free Allows Ham radio operations for iPhone. Adobe Reader Free Allows iPhone to store, recall, read, and mark-up PDF files on the device. When used with iTunes on a PC, it can manually move PDF’s to and from the iPhone. Smart Office 2 $9.99 Can allow iPhone to create and modify Microsoft Excel, Word, and Power Point files. Uses iTunes to move documents between PC and iPhone. Sketch Pad Free Used to create sketches on iPhone and can be exported to PC. My Radar Free Quick easy weather radar data on iPhone, based on current location. Can zoom/pan the data. WunderMap Free Weather Underground’s iPhone App. (Link to NWSBMX) Free National Weather Service link “stored as an icon”. Red Cross – First Aid Free This is a “Dual Purpose” app. It functions as a step by step guide in a first aid emergency and it is a training guide is there is not an emergency. Red Cross – Tornado Free App to have weather warnings reported to your iPhone. Using current location as well as allowing you to monitor any other county. (Does not work on polygon data). Red Cross – Hurricane Free App to have Hurricane warnings reported to your iPhone. Using current location as well as allowing you to monitor any other county. (Does not work on polygon data). Red Cross – Earthquake Free App to have earthquakes warnings reported to your iPhone. Using current location as well as allowing you to monitor any other county. (Does not work on polygon data). Red Cross – Wildfire Free App to have wildfire warnings reported to your iPhone. Using current location as well as allowing you to monitor any other county. (Does not work on polygon data). VisionLink Free This started out as Red Cross – “Shelters” It appears to have been “taken over” by VisionLink Red Cross – Flood Free App to have flood warnings reported to your iPhone. Using current location as well as allowing you to monitor any other county. (Does not work on polygon data). iTrage Free Very similar to a Physicians Desk Reference. Also has locations of nearest hospital, clinic, etc. to your current location. Waze Free Navigation program which uses a “social Media” approach to warn of traffic related issues. Google Earth Free Access satellite images. What Knot Free Handbook of what knots to use and how to tie them. SAS Survival Guide Free The British SAS Survival Handbook by John “Lofty” Wiseman Take Ten Free Colombia Sports check list for various outdoor activities. Flight Aware Free Track private and commercial flights and airport information by the FAA airport abbreviations. Friend Finder Free “Big Brother” tracking app. Lets you share your location with other people. iTalk Free Voice recording app. Used to record notes and then have the program transpose them into a Word document and then use iTunes to copy to the PC. Angle Meter Free App to get an angle of the object on the screen. (Can be used to get the takeoff angle of an antenna). Zello Free Multi person push-to-talk app. Editor’s Note: One fun app that Teresa introduced me to is “Tap-Tap-See”. Using the built in accessibility functions of the phone, namely the “voice over” function, using this app you can point the camera at an object, take the picture and the phone will tell you what you are targeting. Such as “large yellow cat on chair”. This is a useful function as well as being just plain fun to tinker with. These apps may be obtained via the “App Store” icon on your iPhone. …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 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, just in reverse. 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. 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 low above the eastern horizon in mid-dawn. This will be it’s best morning appearance of 2014. It is best viewed about an hour before sunrise. Venus is hidden in the glare of the Sun. Mars is low in the southwest as twilight fades into darkness. Giant Jupiter rises in the east-northeast around 1 AM and shines brightly at the Cancer-Leo border in the east. By dawn it shines brightly high in the southeast. Saturn is sinking away into the sunset, just above the west-southwest horizon. Uranus is high in the southeast in Pisces in early evening. Neptune is high in the South in Aquarius also in early evening. Full Moon will occur at 4:23 PM CST November 6. 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. The Moon will disappear from view as New Moon occurs on November 22 at 6:32 AM CST. The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs from November 10 – 21 and peaks on the night of November 17/18. Though the Leonids is 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. 1763 planets have been confirmed beyond our star system as of October 15, 2014. Finally, don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour Sunday Morning November 2nd, as Daylight Savings Time ends. ………………………………………………………………………………………. This month’s meeting will be on November 10 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport. Now 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. I hope to see you there. Until then, 73 and take care. Mark WD4NYL Editor ALERT NEWSLETTER www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx/