ALERT Newsletter – December 2012

Soas you go about your Christmas preparations remember the magic that was there when you were a child & don’t let that magic die. Make it magic once again

For Christmas truly is “the most wonderful time of the year”.

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Mark’s Almanac

December, the tenth Roman Month, is the cloudiest month of the year, with only 40 to 60% of possible sunshine poking through the clouds. It is also the stormiest month of the year for the Continental US & the Gulf of Mexico. By “stormy” meaning large-scale storms, not necessarily the tornadic storms that they bring, even though we are still in the Second Tornado Season.

A region of heavy rainfall usually forms from Texas to Northwest Florida to Tennessee and Arkansas. Cold waves bringing rain, snow, ice and occasionally tornadoes, sweep across the region.

December can be cloudy and cold, and, then it can swing into spring like warmth, luring plants to bloom early, only to have the frosts and freezes return and the plants are “nipped in the bud”.

Hurricane season is now “officially” over, however Mother Nature sometimes throws a surprise in to make life interesting. In 124 years of records, from 1885 to 2011 there have been 5 December hurricanes. The last being Hurricane Epsilon during the 2005 season, the year in which we ran out of hurricane names. That year also featured Tropical Storm Zeta, the latest forming Tropical Storm which formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 7, 2006.

Now, just in case haven’t already heard, according to the Mayan calendar, and an varied assortment of nutcases, profiteers and soft headed souls, the world is due to end on December 21 at 11:11:11 UTC or 5:11:11 AM CST. This is the date on which when the Mayan calendar ends or resets.

I had considered worrying about this a little, but Teresa pointed out that OUR calendar seems to keep on going, and ours is a little more up to date.

So instead I’ll just continue looking forward to all the bargains in unused “previously owned” camping and emergency gear, which will soon appear. I expect the market to be flooded as folk come to realize that the planet is still here, and that the reason the Mayans ended their calendar wasn’t due to visions of the Apocalypse, but rather due to a lack of Federal funding.

Mayan’s aside, expect winter to begin with Winter Solstice December 21 at 5:12 AM CST.

Early in the month as dawn begins to brighten, look towards the Southeast as Mercury, Venus and Saturn form a diagonal line with bright Venus in the center, Saturn to the upper right and Mercury to the lower left.

Mars is low in the southwest during evening twilight in Sagittarius The Archer.

Jupiter, in Taurus, rises at Sunset, with the orange star Aldebaran twinkling to his lower right; he will be visible traveling the night sky until Sunrise. Jupiter is currently at the closest distance to the Earth. His next closest approach will be in 2021.

Uranus lies in Pisces, while Neptune is in Aquarius in the south in at Sunset.

The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks on December 13-14. Geminids are one of the year’s best meteor showers. It’s a consistent and prolific shower, and usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the more widely recognized Perseids of August. This shower typically produces 50 or more meteors an hour, or about one every minute.

As a general rule, the dazzling Geminid meteor shower starts around mid-evening and tends to pick up steam as evening deepens into late night. No matter where you live worldwide, the greatest number of meteors usually fall in the wee hours after midnight, or for a few hours centered around 2 a.m. local time. If you’re game, you can watch the Geminid shower all the way from mid-evening until dawn.

This year we will have the advantage of a moonless night, as New Moon occurs on December 13, and therefore won’t interfere with the shower.

Incidentally December 2012’s new moon will be the closest new moon of the year – what some people call a “supermoon”. With a supermoon the gravitational tug of the sun and moon team up together to create wide-ranging tides, with extremely low low tides and exceptionally high high tides in the same day.

December’s Full Moon is “Cold Moon” in Native American folklore.

Looking forward to 2013, if all goes well, we will be treated to two “Great Comets.”

A “Great Comet” is a comet that becomes exceptionally bright, bright enough to be noticed by casual observers who are not looking for them, sticking out like a celestial sore thumb.

Comet C/2011 L4 (PanStarrs) will be visible to the naked eye from February to April 2013 and is expected to be a very bright Great Comet of -1 magnitude in March 2013.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) is expected to be a great comet in autumn of 2013, being visible to the naked eye from November 2013 to January 2014, and may be as bright or even brighter than Venus at it’s peak.

Great Comets are rare events. On average only one will appear in a decade, so 2013 should be a treat.

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This month’s meeting will be on December 11 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport.

From Mark & Teresa’s house we wish you all Merry Christmas and 73.

Mark / WD4NYL

Training Officer

ALERT

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