ALERT NEWSLETTER – September 2018

Hi everyone,

Though the temperature and certainly the humidity aren’t betraying the secret, Fall is soon approaching.

Already the grass is growing slower and the leaves are starting to look weathered and worn. Soon the Fall season and the events that come with it will arrive and we will enjoy the not too hot, not too cold days of the Goldilocks of seasons.

Football, camping, cookouts and a slight crispness in the air – do I sound like I am ready for it?

Whatever you are looking forward to, I hope you have a fun safe late Summer / Early Fall Season.

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Tempests, Trials & Tribulations

Early last month the Central Pacific was the temporary home to Hurricane Hector, a Category 4 storm that passed South of Hawaii. The name may have sounded familiar, for Hector, as it turns out, was quite a world traveler, having already visited the British Isles in early June.

Now how did Hector manage to do this feat? Hector cloned himself of course.

Or perhaps there is another explanation.

Beginning in 2017, the UK Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather service and its Irish counterpart Met Eireann decided to follow the US system of giving male and female names to tropical storms and hurricanes and began naming North Atlantic Storms or “Tempests” to make people more aware of the severe weather and help them prepare in advance.

Surveys showed people were more aware of the threat and more likely to take action after hearing the name of a storm, rather than a forecast simply saying that bad weather was on the way. For example, 89 per cent of people said they were aware of the approaching Storm Doris – which wreaked havoc in February 2017 – and 94 per cent said warnings were useful.

These storms will be given a name if it has the potential to cause an “Amber – Be Prepared” or “Red – Take Action” warning for the people of Britain and Ireland.

In the winter season of 2016/17, the names included Angus, Barbara, Conor and Doris.

The Met Office and Met Eireann’s joint list of names for 2017/2018 includes a total of 21 names which were chosen after being whittled down from more than 10,000 suggestions submitted by the public. One name was picked for each letter of the alphabet, apart from Q, U, X, Y and Z, those letters being omitted to ensure consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic, to reduce confusion for fellow weather experts, sea captains and pilots.

Those 21 names are: Aileen, Brian, Caroline, Dylan, Eleanor, Fionn (pronounced F-yunn), Georgina, Hector, Iona, James, Karen, Larry, Maeve, Niall (pronounced Nye-al), Octavia, Paul, Rebecca, Simon, Tali, Victor & Winifred.

If a storm has already been named by another meteorological agency, it will retain that name. For instance, it is not uncommon for a Tropical system named by the National Hurricane Center to recurve Northeast and remain intact as a storm and reach the British Isles.

The naming of storms of course isn’t a new idea, the Great Flood of Noah, being perhaps the oldest example of a named storm.

One curious thing to ponder upon, whether you believe the Biblical story or not, is that it is interesting that so many cultures and religions from the ancient Sumerians, Hindus, Greeks, Chinese, Norse, Mayan, Native American and even the Aboriginal peoples of Australia have legends of some sort a great flood, usually caused by divine interaction and many featuring a ship being built as a refuge for the remnants of mankind.

Are the legends merely coincidences or are they based on faded memories of a common event, memories almost lost in the mists of antiquity from the prehistoric days before mankind overspread the world in, as the Aborigines call them “the Dream Times” of early man?

Moving to more recent times, no record exists of the names of the Category 4 or 5 Hurricanes that geological evidence indicate struck Mobile Bay in 830 & 1140 AD, but, I imagine the Native America’s who endured these storms called them a name or two.

The earliest report of a Hurricane came from Christopher Columbus, who encountered a Hurricane during his second voyage to Hispaniola in September 1494.

Early West Indies Tropical Storms were named after the particular Saint’s day on which the storm occurred. For instance, “Hurricane San Roque of 1508”, which was the first recorded Tropical Cyclone in Puerto Rico.

As the centuries progressed this tradition would continue, with storms being named because of their intensity, such as the “Great Hurricane of 1722” which destroyed New Orleans, the location affected, as with the “Great Galveston Hurricane Of 1900” or for the holiday it fell on, such as the “Labor Day Hurricane of 1935”, the most intense hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, which struck the Florida Keys.

In the 1880’s and 1890’s Australian Meteorologist Clement Wragge began assigning names to Australia’s Tropical Cyclones. His original idea was to name them after the letters of the Greek alphabet, but, he later used names from Polynesian mythology and politicians, not necessarily for complementary reasons.

In addition to politicians who annoyed him, he used colorful names such as Xerxes, Hannibal, Blasatus and Teman.

Wragge’s Queensland weather office closed in 1903, but, his memory lived on. Especially with author George R. Stewart, who wrote a 1941 novel called “Storm”, in which a junior meteorologist named Pacific extratropical storms after former girlfriends. This novel was widely read, especially by US Army Air Corps and Navy meteorologists during World War II.

One version of how the modern naming of storms began is that during World War II US military meteorologists plotting storms over the Pacific ran into a problem. Where they had had no big problems plotting fronts, highs, lows and an occasional Typhoon, they found themselves having to plot two Typhoons at once. How were they to distinguish one Typhoon from the other in dispatches? They decided to stick them with names, as in Stewart’s novel, and began naming them after girlfriends and wives.

In 1945, the Armed Services publicly adopted a list of women’s names for Typhoons of the Western Pacific using the names of wives of officers assigned to forward forecast centers on Guam and the Philippines.

However, they were unable to persuade the U.S. Weather Bureau to adopt a similar practice for Atlantic Hurricanes.

Starting in 1947, the Air Force Hurricane Office in Miami began designating Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean using the old Army/Navy phonetic alphabet i.e., Able, Baker Charlie and so forth in internal communications.

In 1950 three Hurricanes occurred simultaneously in the Atlantic basin, which caused considerable confusion. To remedy this Grady Norton of the US Weather Bureau’s Miami Hurricane Warning Center decided to use the Air Force’s naming system in public bulletins and end of season summaries. The press soon caught on and started using these names, and the practice proved to be popular.

A new international phonetic alphabet was adopted in 1952, with the familiar Alpha, Beta, Charlie style which is commonly used today. To avoid confusion the US Weather Bureau switched to the Armed Forces system of using women’s names, which was both controversial and popular.

Using the US example other meteorological entities then began similar practices for naming storms in the Tropical Cyclone Basins under their jurisdiction.

In 1978, the current system that alternates between men’s and women’s names was adopted, following the practice used by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, which brings us to 2018.

Tropical Cyclone names for all basins may be found at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml and https://public.wmo.int/en/About-us/FAQs/faqs-tropical-cyclones/tropical-cyclone-naming

Then we come to the touchy subject of naming winter storms. Winter storms have been unofficially named since the mid 1700’s as a way to describe historic storms, beginning with “The Great Snow of 1717”, which dumped five feet of snow on the colonies of Virginia and New England in 1717.

In the 2010’s The Weather Channel and other media outlets began tagging their own names on winter storms

In November 2012, The Weather Channel began systematically naming winter storms, starting with the November 2012 nor’easter it named “Winter Storm Athena.” The Weather Channel compiled a list of winter storm names for the 2012–13 winter season, including Athena, Brutus, Caesar, Gandolf, Khan, and Nemo.

The Weather Channel Senior Director Bryan Norcross said “It would only name those storms that are ‘disruptive’ to people”. The reasoning being that the names help people with preparation.

Their decision was met with criticism from other weather forecasters, including NOAA, who does no acknowledge these names and in a November 2012 memo requested that its employees avoid referring to storms by name.

NWS spokesperson Susan Buchanan stated, “The National Weather Service does not name winter storms because a winter storm’s impact can vary from one location to another, and storms can weaken and redevelop, making it difficult to define where one ends and another begins.”

AccuWeather, a commercial weather forecasting service, also disagrees with the practice of naming winter storms. AccuWeather President Joel N. Myers stated in February 2013, “The Weather Channel has confused media spin with science and public safety. We […] have found this is not good science and will mislead the public.”

In defense of The Weather Channel’s practice, The Weather Channel’s Norcross said, “The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.”

AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines counters, “The Weather Channel probably names the storms because it gets the publicity”. In other words, they hype them for marketing reasons and ratings.

Whether it’s a good idea or just plain monkey business, I don’t know, and I won’t speculate either. For as a sweet lady once taught me “a wise monkey never monkey’s with another monkey’s monkey”, so this monkey isn’t going to go monkeying around with it.

Or as the old saying goes “Though I am tempted to do so, Wisdom whispers otherwise and sometimes I actually will heed Her silken voice.”

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Mark’s Almanac

September is the ninth month of the year and the seventh month of the Roman calendar, which is where the month gets its name.

Temperatures are still hot at the beginning of the month, but, by months end, fall will definitely be felt.

Noticeable in September will be the thickening of the cat’s fur, as she begins growing her winter coat & the drift of Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies as they migrate towards Florida.

Weather starts shifting from the summer to autumn pattern and then back again. Storm activity resembles the August pattern, but the Bermuda High starts shifting southward and begins weakening, which weakens the blocking effect that has hampered fronts attempting to invade from the northwest.

September is the peak of the hurricane season, the actual peak being on September 10. This peak coincides with the time of “syzygy”, when the effects of the solar and lunar gravity and autumnal equinox combine to provide the highest astronomical tides of the year. Add a hurricane’s storm surge on top of this and you can have incredibly destructive flooding.

From 1851 – 2017 there have been 584 Tropical Storms and 404 hurricanes, 111 of which made landfall in the United States.

Some notable September hurricanes are:

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which was a Category 4 Storm whose storm surge overwhelmed Galveston Island, killing 8000 people, and is still the deadliest weather disaster in US history.

The Labor Day Hurricane of 1936, the most intense storm to strike the US, was a Category 5 storm which moved through the Florida Keys and along West Florida, overturning trains and literally sandblasting people to death.

Camille, a category 5 storm, and the second most intense storm to hit the US, which devastated Mississippi and Louisiana in 1969.

Andrew was a category 5 storm which devastated South Florida in 1992. The ruins of buildings destroyed are still visible today.

Opal, which weakened to a category 3 storm just before striking near Pensacola and then moving into and maintaining hurricane strength deep into Alabama as it crossed the length of the state in in 1995.

Ivan, the category 3 storm which struck Alabama & Florida in 2004, caused tremendous damage to Gulf Shores and extensive damage to the state’s electrical grid. At the height of the outages, Alabama Power reported 489,000 subscribers had lost electrical power—roughly half of its subscriber base.

Katrina, which weakened from a category 5 storm to a category 3 storm at landfall near Buras Louisiana in 2005. This storm caused catastrophic damage to Louisiana and Mississippi, parts of which are still being rebuilt to this day.

Rita, a category 3 storm which struck the Texas – Louisiana border in 2005, and, despite the distance, dropped 22 tornadoes over Western Alabama.

Wilma, the strongest Atlantic Basin hurricane with 185 MPH winds, weakened slightly before hitting the Yucatan Peninsula, and then strengthening to a category 3 storm before striking near Cape Romano Florida in 2005. Wilma would be the last major hurricane to strike the US until Harvey 12 years later.

September Tropical Cyclone Breeding Grounds

Days continue to grow shorter as the Sun’s angle above the noonday horizon steadily decreases from 64.6 degrees at the beginning of the month to 53.5 degrees at the month’s end. Daylight decreases from 12 hours 51 minutes on August 1 to 11 hours 52 minutes on August 31.

Sunrise and sunset times for Birmingham are:

September 1 Sunrise 6:21 AM Sunset 7:12 PM
September 15 Sunrise 6:31 AM Sunset 6:53 PM
September 31 Sunrise 6:40 AM Sunset 6:33 PM

Looking skyward, we find a unique occurrence in progress. Through the first week of September all eight planets, all five named dwarf planets and all 182 moons in the solar system are located on one side of the solar system.

This is called “maximus lopsiditus”, or at least it should be. Other than possibly tugging the Sun’s trek through the Milky Way slightly to one side, it has no major significance other than being a cool factoid.

Looking at the planets, Mercury, magnitude 0, the swiftest planet, is visible in the predawn below Gemini The Twins, rises 45 minutes before sunrise and will brighten to magnitude -1 as he reaches Perihelion, or his closest approach to the Sun on September 2.

He will then begin sinking towards the Sunset and pass behind the Sun reaching “Superior Conjunction” on September 20, when Mercury and the Earth will be on opposite sides of the sun.

Venus, magnitude –4.5, shines low in the west in twilight. In a telescope Venus is just on the crescent side of dichotomy or being half-lit. For the best telescopic view catch Venus as early as you can, preferably long before sunset while she is still high.

Mars, magnitude -2.3 at the border of Sagittarius and Capricorn is gradually fading and growing smaller as he moves away from the Earth. He rises higher in the southeast earlier in the evening and is at its highest in the south around 11 PM CDT and is still blazing red. Mars will reach Perihelion or his closest approach to the Sun on September 16.

Though Mars is not and never will be the same size of the Full Moon, as the recurring internet rumor states, I would take advantage of viewing Mars while he is still as large as he is, for he won’t appear this big again until 2035.

Jupiter, his 67 moons and thin rings shines at magnitude –2.0 in Libra in the Southwest in twilight.

Saturn, his 62 moons and massive rings glows yellow at magnitude +0.3 in the South at above the Sagittarius Teapot at nightfall.

Uranus, magnitude 5.8, is at the Aries-Pisces border; well up in the East by Midnight.

Neptune, magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius is well up in the Southeast by Midnight. Neptune will be at Opposition, or his closes approach to Earth or 2,689,200,000 miles on September 7.

The Moon will be at Perigee or its closest approach to Earth on September 7, when she will be 224,536 miles from Earth.

New Moon occurs September 9 at 1:01 PM CDT or 18:01 UTC when the Moon will on the same side of the Earth as the Sun and will not be visible in the night sky. 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.

The Moon will be at Apogee or its farthest distance from Earth on August 23, when she will be 251578 miles from Earth.

Fall begins at Autumnal Equinox on September 22 at 8:54 PM CDT or 1:54 UTC, when the Sun crosses directly over the equator and night and day is approximately the same length throughout the world. For the Southern Hemisphere it is Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring.

One term that occasionally pops up is “equinoctial storms”. Which are severe storms in North America and the UK that supposedly accompany the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Where this belief originated is obscure. Some say perhaps from the 1700’s when sailors were greeted by West Indies hurricanes, or due to the coincidence of the first fall severe storms sometimes coming in the latter half of September. At any rate, statistics show no evidence to support the belief.

On this date, if there is sufficient solar activity, and you are away from city lights, the aurora may possibly be seen, as the Equinox dates are the two most favored times of the year for auroral sightings.

September’s Full Moon will occur September 25 at 9:53 PM CDT or 2:53 UTC. This month’s moon is “Full Corn Moon” in Native American folklore because corn is harvested this time of year.

This year it is also “Harvest Moon”. Harvest moon get its name because the moon is larger and seems to rise at almost the same time every night, which allowed harvesting to continue on into the night.

Most believe that Harvest Moon is always in September; however this isn’t always the case. Harvest Moon is actually the full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox, and so occasionally it can occur with October “Hunters Moon”.

High in the Southern night sky an asterism or a group of stars appearing clustered together, but not actually gravitationally bound will be seen that resembles a teapot. This is the Teapot of Sagittarius.

To the naked eye, the Teapot is roughly the size of your fist at arm’s length. Above the spout of the Teapot lies a band of light, the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud. A pair of binoculars will reveal a sea of stars and faint grayish patches, the largest of which is the Lagoon Nebula. When you look upon these nebulae you are seeing stars in the process of being born.

The spout, which is tilting and pouring to the right, also points towards the galactic center of the Milky Way, located just beyond the Large Sagittarius Star cloud, but largely hidden by the dust clouds, which lie along the plane of the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy.

3778 planets beyond our solar system have now been confirmed as of August 23, per NASA’s Exoplanet Archive http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/.

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This month’s meeting will be on September 11 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

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