ALERT NEWSLETTER – April 2016

Published 04/04/2016 | By KV4S

Hi everyone,

I hope this finds you doing well.

Just a brief reminder, that at our upcoming April 12 meeting the Nominating Committee will issue its recommendations for the upcoming ALERT elections in May. Nominations from the floor will be allowed the night of the elections in May.

I hope to see you there!

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Help Wanted!

We need articles for this newsletter.

Some topics might include:

How you became interested in ALERT.
Interesting moments you have experienced during callouts or Skywarn Nets
Experiences you have had with storms.
Officers thoughts and comments.
Meeting minutes.
Operator “hints and kinks” (they call them “hacks” now, though why I don’t know).
Your thoughts and suggestions concerning emergency preparedness.

Remember this is YOUR newsletter, not mine.

Your help will be appreciated.

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Did You Know?

Tornado forecasting was once banned in the US?

Before 1950, the “Weather Bureau”, as the National Weather Service was called from 1889 to 1970, was strongly discouraged and at other times forbidden to use the word “tornado” in weather forecasts, because of a fear that predicting tornadoes might cause panic.

Per the Storm Prediction Center “This was in an era when very little was known about tornadoes compared to today, by both scientists and the public at large. Tornadoes were, for most, dark and mysterious menaces of unfathomable power, fast-striking monsters from the sky capable of sudden and unpredictable acts of death and devastation.

As the weather patterns which led to major tornado events became better documented and researched, the mystery behind predicting them began to clear–a process which still is far from complete, of course.”

On July 12, 1950, the Weather Bureau revoked the ban, stating: ”Whenever the forecaster has a sound basis for predicting tornadoes, the forecast should include the prediction in as definite terms as the circumstances justify.”

The first documented successful tornado forecast by meteorologists was on March 25, 1948 by Air Force Captain Robert Miller and Major Ernest Fawbush, who after noticing striking similarities in the developing weather pattern to others which produced tornadoes, including the Tinker AFB, OK, tornado several days before, advised their superior officer of a tornado threat in central Oklahoma that evening. Compelled from above to issue a yes/no decision on a tornado forecast after thunderstorms developed in western Oklahoma, they put out the word of possible tornadoes, and the base carried out safety precautions. A few hours later, the second tornado in five days directly hit the base.

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Mark’s Almanac

The Romans called April “Aprilis”, probably from the word “aperire”, which means, “to open”. This time of year being when buds open. It was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before Roman King Numa Pompilius added January & February in 700 BC.

Freezing weather comes to an end as Birmingham’s average last freeze is April 1, while Tuscaloosa’s was March 26. The record for the latest freeze date is April 21, 1953 for Tuscaloosa and April 23, 1986 for Birmingham.

April is less wet than March & rain becomes more localized and less widespread in nature. The sun heats the lower atmosphere near the ground and since the upper atmosphere is still cold, the warm air rises, reaches the dew point line, forms clouds & then it may rain. April is the first time in the spring season that favors local convective activity, which is why you have “April Showers”.

April is peak tornado month, with wide scale outbreaks possible. There are 2 ½ times the number of tornadoes as in March. 25% of the year’s tornadoes will have occurred by April 28.

From April 1950 to 2014, 8304 tornadoes were reported causing, as of 2013, 1770 deaths and 29,090 injuries.

As of 2011, Alabama ranked fifth in the number of April tornadoes, following Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois & Kansas, all belonging to the “over 400 club” for April since 1950.

As of June 2013 Alabama and Oklahoma are tied as having the most F5 & EF5 tornadoes, both having had 7 F5 or EF5 tornadoes. In fact until the May 20, 2013 Moore Oklahoma EF5 tornado, Alabama lead the nation in the most violent tornadoes.

Some notable Alabama tornados in past Aprils include:

April 18, 1953 F3 Lee & Russell County 6 dead 195 injured
April 18, 1953 F3 Shelby County 8 dead 495 injured
April 15, 1956 F4 Jefferson County 25 dead 200 injured “McDonald Chapel Tornado”
April 18, 1969 F4 Montgomery, Bullock, Butler & Crenshaw Counties 2 dead 15 injured

April 3 & 4, 1974 “Super Outbreak” or produced at least eight tornadoes in Alabama, including four extremely intense and long-lived storms that swept the state killing eighty-six persons and injuring 949. The Huntsville area had an F3, F4 & an F5 tornado. The F4 tornado struck a half mile from where they were still digging out from an F3 tornado that had struck earlier in that day. Guin was literally wiped off the map, as was Xenia Ohio. The entire Eastern US and Southern Canada was affected during “April 3, 1974 F5 Lamar, Marion, Winston, Lawrence & Morgan Counties 30 dead 230 injured

April 3, 1974 F4 Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker & Cullman Counties 3 dead 178 injured
April 3, 1974 F5 Limestone-Madison 28 dead 260 injured
April 4, 1977 F5 Jefferson County 22 dead 130 injured “Smithfield Tornado”
April 1, 1998 F3 Russell County 2 dead 23 injured
April 8, 1998 F5 Tuscaloosa & Jefferson County 32 dead 259 Injured “Oak Grove Tornado”

April 25 – 28, 2011 Super outbreak was the largest and deadliest tornado outbreak on record,
with 358 tornadoes in 21 states and southern Canada. April 27 alone had 211 tornadoes. Of 348
people killed, 324 were tornado related, the other 24 being non tornado storm related deaths, such as straight line winds.

Alabama was hit by two distinct waves of tornadoes, the first hitting during the early morning hours resulting in 52 injuries and the second in the afternoon and evening resulting in 238 deaths and 1946 injuries in a total of 62 tornadoes.

April 27, 2011 F5 Marion County 18 dead 100 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker & Blount Counties 13 dead 54 injured
April 27, 2011 F3 Marion County 7 dead 100 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Greene, Tuscaloosa & Jefferson counties 65 dead 1500 injured
April 27, 2011 F3 Greene, Hale & Bibb counties 7 dead 50 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Jefferson, St. Clair, Calhoun, Etowah and Cherokee counties 22 dead 81 injured
April 27, 2011 F4 Elmore, Tallapoosa & Chambers counties 7 dead 30 injured
April 3, 2012 F2 Tallapoosa & Chambers counties 1 dead 2 injured
April 28, 2014 F3 Limestone County 1 dead 30 injured

Beware of the storms of April.

Looking towards the sky, Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Neptune are hidden behind the Sun. And, hypothetical Planet Nine, is just plan hidden, having yet to be seen.

Mercury will emerge into the evening sky early in the month and on April 18 will reach his highest point in the Western sky, being 19.9 degrees above the horizon. Look for him just after the glow of sunset fades away.

Mars, shining at magnitude -0.5 at the head of Scorpius rises about midnight and glows yellow orange in the south, to the right of dimmer Saturn. He is closing in on his closest approach to Earth, which will occur in May. It is already large enough to show surface detail in a 3 inch telescope, during good seeing conditions. By may it will quadruple in brightness and nearly double in diameter.

Be prepared for the usual Facebook meme that usually circulates around the time of closest approach, which will say, “Mars will appear as large as a full moon” or “we will be treated to two full moons in the evening sky”.

This is both a physical and an optical impossibility.

Unless, of course Mars or Earth slips out its orbit and goes sailing by the other, which in the case of the latter planet, would give us something to worry about….for a little while anyway.

Jupiter, near the hind foot of Leo the Lion shines high in the southeast after dusk and shines highest in the south at magnitude -2.4 at midnight.

On March 17 an amateur astronomers saw a flash in the clouds of Jupiter as a small comet or asteroid, a few hundred feet in diameter struck the planet. This isn’t the first time such a strike has been observed. He was struck in 1994 by fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, and was struck again by other objects in 2010 & 2012.
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Saturn shining at magnitude +0.4 in the legs of Ophiuchus rises around midnight, 10 degrees lower left of Mars. By dawn they will stand in the south, with Saturn on the left, bright Mars on the right and the fainter Mars colored star Antares, at magnitude +0.96, twinkling below them making a triangle.

Antares, or Alpha Scorpii is 550 light years away and is the fifteenth brightest star in the night sky.
Its name is derived from the Greek Άντάρης, which means “equal to Ares”, with the similar red hue. Ares was the Greek god of War, the counterpart of Mars, the Roman god of war, or in other words, basically the same dude.

A red giant star, like similar star Betelguese in Orion, both are expected to explode in a supernova that could be as bright as the full moon and be visible in the daylight.

The last supernova in our galaxy was 400 years ago, and we are 300 years overdue for one.

Will these explode within our microscopically small lifetimes? Or will it occur 10,000 years from now, when the nations and events of the 21st century will be a mere footnote in the histories of whatever civilizations may exist?

Only time and the silent darkness of space will tell.

April’s New Moon will occur April 7 at 5:24 AM CDT. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters, as there will be no moonlight to wash out the evening sky.

April’s Full Moon was known as “Full Pink Moon” in Native American folklore as it marked the reappearance of pink wild ground phlox. This will occur April 21 at 11:24 PM. This moon was also called by various tribes, the “Sprouting Grass Moon”, “Growing Moon”, “Egg Moon” and “Fish Moon”, as this is when shad swam upstream to spawn.

The Lyrid Meteor Shower which, runs annually from April16 – 25, peaks on the evening of April 22 and morning of April 23. This is a minor shower, with only 12 to 24 meteors per hour. These meteors sometimes produce bright dust trails that last for several seconds.

This shower is produced by dust particles left behind by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which was discovered in 1861.

Unfortunately, this year a nearly Full Moon will drown out all but the brightest meteors.

1962 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of March 24, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

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This month’s meeting will be on April 12 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.

ALERT NEWSLETTER – April 2016

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