ALERT newsletter – July 2016

Hi everyone & Happy 4th of July!

With this month’s newsletter I wish to welcome our new President Dale Chambers KD4QHZ!

Dale has been very active in Civil Air Patrol, and was the Commander of the CAP in Bessemer and is well versed in Emergency Communications.…and I’ve known Dale for a long time, as we went to school together back in the Dark Ages, and can tell you that ALERT is in good hands.

So let’s make sure to encourage and support him as he leads ALERT into the future.

Try to attend our July 12 meeting as we welcome Dale!

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Why I Joined ALERT

This feature gives members an opportunity to share their stories of why they are members of ALERT. Why did you become a member of ALERT? What lessons have you learned?

Our first story is from Casey NZ20.

I’m Casey Benefield/NZ2O. I joined ALERT because of the influence of many good men while I was growing up. Looking back, everything happened in the most perfect order and timing, almost like it was a plan. Secondarily, I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to weather and technology, so I tend to push the envelope.

James Spann/WO4W visited my school when I was 7. If memory serves right, I was sent to the principal’s office after making a weather poster. I still remember the surprised look when I explained what was on it. I didn’t realize I had just explained convection/wind, nor could I spell convection.

Mark Parmley/NR4J introduced me to ham radio while on church mission trips from 1999-2003. I became licensed when I lived in Springfield, MO for work with HP. Springfield didn’t have a the same kind of wall-to-wall coverage that we enjoy in Alabama. Amateur radio and Skywarn helped me stay one step ahead, when I had no tornado shelter or basement.

At the ALERT table at Birminghamfest, Just John Miller/KI4VVM helped me understand how ALERT supports the NWS, by receiving the Skywarn and storm reports that I became fond of in Springfield. The final tipping point was April 27, 2011, where amateur radio rendered aid to my family, getting us out of the impacted area. I decided it was time for me to return that favor, to serve those in amateur radio, NWS, and the weather community that has kept me and my family safe for years, with those valuable early warnings and forecasts.


(Editors Note: Thank you Casey for your input and for your (and Russell & Justin’s) work on ALERT’s various social media presences:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/K4NWS/
ALERT Blog – https://alert-alabama.org/blog/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/K4NWS
Google+ https://plus.google.com/+Alert-alabamaOrg?prsrc=5
Zello – http://zello.me/k/duTMd


Who will send our next story?

I hope it will be YOU!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Alabama – Number One!

Alabama can boast of not only having the BCS National Championship team (Roll Tide), but we also lead the nation, according to USA Today, of having the “most dangerous weather.”

Per the USAToday feature: http://www.usatoday.com/videos/money/2016/05/19/84609416/
the top seven states are:

1. Alabama

5 year fatality rate: 61.1 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 295
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $4.4 Billion

2. Missouri

5 year fatality rate: 43.5 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 263
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $3.5 Billion

3. Nevada

5 year fatality rate: 36.1 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 101
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $133.0 Million

4. Wyoming

5 year fatality rate: 34.5 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 20
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $45 Million


5. Arkansas

5 year fatality rate: 30.8 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 91
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $1.2 Billion

6. Oklahoma

5 year fatality rate: 27.8 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 107
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: S3.3 Billion

7. Mississippi

5 year fatality rate: 26.4 (per million residents)
Total Fatalities 2011 – 2015: 79
Total Damage 2011 – 2015: $2.6 Billion

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Mark’s Almanac

Originally called “Quintilis”, the fifth Roman month, Quintilis was renamed “July” in 44 BC in honor of Julius Caesar.
July is miserably hot, as land temperatures reach their peaks in late July through early August – the Dog Days of Summer.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists the traditional period of the Dog Days as the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11.

The Romans on the other hand said that the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24, or, alternatively, from July 23 through August 23, coinciding with the Sun and the Dog Star Sirius rising at the same time & their combined heat supposedly adding to the summer misery.

As you endure this heat, remember to drink lots of fluids, hug the shade & avoid the afternoon sun.

Also please resist the temptation to take Fido for a walk during the heat of the day. Remember that the “official” temperature readings are taken 6 feet above ground level. It’s much, much hotter on the ground where Fido & Puss have to walk bare paw, where it could easily be 150 degrees.

Before taking Muttley for a walk, place your hand on the pavement and see how hot it is. If it’s miserable to you, it will be miserable to him also. Just walk him in the morning or wait until the sun is setting and it cools off to a tolerable level and try to stick to grassy areas. Then go have a good time together.

The last week of July is usually the hottest week of the year. Tropical conditions are dominant, with conditions similar to that of the Amazon Valley.

This is the time to test the “Brown Grass Theory”. According to this theory, if the grass remains green the temperature will probably not reach 100, but, if the grass turns brown, get set for triple digits. This is a local Birmingham rule, which the Old Timers at the Birmingham NWS used for years.

In July the least rainfall falls in the Northern Hemisphere.

Tornado activity drops sharply, with a 47% decrease nationwide. July has an average of 103 tornadoes.

Hurricane activity increases, but major hurricanes are not yet frequent. By months end, one hurricane will have occurred. Seven percent of a year’s hurricane total occurs in July.

Long track hurricanes are possible, forming off the African coast and crossing the Atlantic, either to threaten the US East Coast, then eventually veering off towards Bermuda. Or in the case of “Low Latitude” storms, cross the Atlantic, strike the Leeward Islands; enter the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast.

Looking skyward, Mercury is disappearing into the glow of sunrise, while Venus is hidden in the glow of sunset.

Mars is shining at magnitude -1.5 in Libra. It is the yellow orange point shining, but, not twinkling, in the South during and after dusk. Mars is shrinking and dimming in the night sky as the Earth pulls away from the Red Planet.

Jupiter shining at magnitude -1.9 at the hind foot of Leo The Lion shines in the West during and after dusk. He is almost the smallest he ever appears in the sky, being on the far side of his orbit from us.

On July 4 NASA’s Juno spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter after a five year journey. Launched on August 5, 2011, Juno will be inserted into a polar orbit around the giant planet on or around July 4, 2016. From this orbit the spacecraft will study Jupiter’s atmosphere and magnetic field. Juno will remain in orbit until October 2017, when the spacecraft will be de-orbited to crash into Jupiter.

Saturn, shining at magnitude +0.2 in Southern Ophiucus glows 20 degrees East or left of Mars.

Uranus shines at magnitude 5.9 in Pisces in the East before dawn begins.
Neptune, magnitude +7.9 in Aquarius, is higher in the Southeast before the light of dawn.
Recently the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a large a dark vortex in the atmosphere of Neptune. Though similar features were seen during the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune in 1989 and by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994, this vortex is the first one observed on Neptune in the 21st century.
Neptune’s dark vortices are high-pressure systems and are usually accompanied by bright “companion clouds,” which are also now visible on the distant planet. The bright clouds form when the flow of ambient air is perturbed and diverted upward over the dark vortex, causing gases to likely freeze into methane ice crystals. Dark vortices coast through the atmosphere like huge, lens-shaped gaseous mountains and the companion clouds are similar to the lens shaped orographic clouds that sometimes appear over mountains on Earth, which are often mistaken for UFO’s.
On July 4 the Moon will be located on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will be invisible. New Moon will occur at 11:01 UTC or 6:01 AM CDT. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.

July’s Full Moon occurs July 19 at 22:57 or UTC 5:57 PM CDT, and is called “Buck Moon” in Native American folklore. This moon gets its name because the male buck deer begin to grow their new antlers at this time of year. It has also been called “Full Thunder Moon” & “Hay Moon”.

Make sure to take time to enjoy the glow of Earth’s primary moon. “Primary moon?”…“What’s he talking about?”

In the never ending game of celestial billiards or perhaps heavenly square-dancing, objects are constantly being pulled, turned, captured and released by the competing gravitational fields of the Sun, planets and moons.

Occasionally an object can be captured by a planet and become a permanent fixture as a moon, such as Phobos and Diemos, the moons of Mars. Other times objects, TCOs (Temporarily Captured Objects) can be temporarily captured by a larger object as in the case of asteroid 2006 RH120, which astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona found orbiting the Earth in 2006. This was a tiny asteroid measuring just a few yards across, but it still qualified as a natural satellite just as much as the Moon. But, by June 2007, it was gone, having been pulled out of orbit by the gravity of the Moon.

Astronomers at Cornel University say “At any given time, there should be at least one natural Earth satellite of 1-meter diameter orbiting the Earth”. These NEOs (Near Earth Objects) orbit the Earth for about ten months, enough time to make about three orbits, before leaving.

Then we come to the case of asteroid 2016 HO3.

On June 15, 2016 NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena announced the discovery of 2016 HO3: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-154

“A small asteroid has been discovered in an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a constant companion of Earth, and it will remain so for centuries to come.”

“As it orbits the sun, this new asteroid, designated 2016 HO3, appears to circle around Earth as well. It is too distant to be considered a true satellite of our planet, but it is the best and most stable example to date of a near-Earth companion, or ‘quasi-satellite.’”

“Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a ‘quasi-satellite’ of Earth,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.”

“One other asteroid — 2003 YN107 — followed a similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since departed our vicinity. This new asteroid is much more locked onto us. Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth’s companion for centuries to come.”

“In its yearly trek around the sun, asteroid 2016 HO3 spends about half of the time closer to the sun than Earth and passes ahead of our planet, and about half of the time farther away, causing it to fall behind. Its orbit is also tilted a little, causing it to bob up and then down once each year through Earth’s orbital plane. In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a game of leap frog with Earth that will last for hundreds of years.”

“The asteroid’s orbit also undergoes a slow, back-and-forth twist over multiple decades. The asteroid’s loops around Earth drift a little ahead or behind from year to year, but when they drift too far forward or backward, Earth’s gravity is just strong enough to reverse the drift and hold onto the asteroid so that it never wanders farther away than about 100 times the distance of the moon,” said Chodas. “The same effect also prevents the asteroid from approaching much closer than about 38 times the distance of the moon. In effect, this small asteroid is caught in a little dance with Earth.”

So, next time you look at the moon and He looks lonely up there, don’t worry. Though you will never spot it, since it’s so faint, he has a wee friend (about 130–330 feet in diameter) up there waltzing with him.

The Delta-Aquariad Meteor shower peaks on the night of July 28th into the morning of the 29th.
This shower annually occurs from July 12 through August 23 is made up of debris from Comets Marsden Kracht and produces a ZHR or Zenith Hourly Rate of 20 meteors per hour. The second quarter moon will block most of the fainter meteors, but, with patience you should be able to see a few good ones.

Also, though it won’t peak until the night and morning of August 12 & 13, the Perseid Meteor Shower begins July 17, and lasts until August 24. This shower, associated with comet Swift-Tuttle will peak at 60 meteors per hour in August.

3285 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of June 23, per NASA’s
Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This month’s meeting will be on July 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.
Hope to see you there!
Mark / WD4NYL
Editor
ALERT Newsletter