ALERT Newsletter – August 2013

Hi everyone and welcome to your August 2013 ALERT Newsletter. I hope this finds you well. If you missed the last ALERT meeting, you missed a good one. We had a great turnout and many interesting things were discussed. Among the various topics that were discussed is news that the NWS is wishing to make an “in house” list of the contact information of Operational Alert Members who physically respond to callouts at K4NWS. This information will be gathered so that, if necessary, they can contact you if they feel they need additional information as they review the K4NWS storm reports & to clarify any details that they are unsure of. This list will be a private list and will NOT be given to the media or other entities. It will be for internal NWS use only. More details on this will be available at the August meeting. Also with the August meeting there will be our first Board of Directors meeting, probably following the regular meeting. The timing is still tentative. Ihope to see you there! ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. NWS Contact Methods Here’s a simple little question for you. Do you know how to contact the National Weather Service during severe weather outbreaks? We may think we do, but, do we really? And, do we have a backup plan in place in case our “preferred method” does not work? You never know when you may need or be asked to contact the NWS. It may happen during an emergency net,it could happen during a normal conversation, either on or off the air, or it may be due to conditions which you yourself are observing. Whether you are a Stormspotter, a casual “armchair” listener, and especially if you are a Net Control Station, we all need to know the methods that the NWS has in place to pass severe storm reports. How does Mark reach the NWS? My personal pecking order is as follows: 1. The NWS Emergency Number 1-800-856-0758 2. Amateur Radio 3. The NWS Chatrooms The 1 800 number I pick first due to reliability. Winds can blow antennae and power lines down & batteries will die. Computers and their various connections can & will fail killing chatrooms. But, phone lines generally will still be there, and as I say, they are reliable. When you call the NWS emergency number you usually will get an answering machine. Don’t let that worry or frustrate you. What most people don’t realize is that even though a machine is “picking up” the call; the calls are being monitored “real time” on speakerphone as they come in. The room goes silent, as everyone listens in giving the call serious attention. Frequently they may pick up and ask for more details, and many times they will call you back if they need more information. They’ve called me back before. These calls are never ignored. I know when I call the message is being listen to. I try not to call and give senseless reports. But, if it did end up being a useless report, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve heard one or first time that I’ve given one. So don’t be shy about using this method. The NWS is the final judge as to whether a report is a usable report, and the NWS WANTS YOUR REPORTS. So pick up that phone and call. Ham Radio I list as a close second choice for a couple of reasons. The first is for technical reasons. You may be out of repeater range or you may not have a radio with you. A net may not be active or there may not be anyone present who knows how to route your report. “I don’t how to contact the Weather Bureau, maybe there is someone who is listening who can” is not what you really want to hear during an emergency. The second reason depends on what I am reporting. If I am reporting the “standard defined” severe weather conditions, namely tornadoes & funnel clouds, wall clouds (rotating or not), flooding, damaging winds, large hail, etc., I won’t hesitate to report via ham radio. By passing this information on the air it will achieve three goals. 1. It alerts the NWS of the situation. 2. It alerts other spotters so that they can target their observations. 3. It alerts others downstream that severe weather is approaching. So in this case ham radio is clearly the way to go But, what if it is a “non-standard” report? For instance, I am in Jefferson County observing a storm over Shelby County. I observe that the thunderstorm column is developing a twisted appearance or “barber poling”, which one definition states is “a corkscrew pattern on a rotating supercell updraft tower”. I also notice that the lightning output has dramatically increased into a continuous pattern like a fluorescent light going out. In this case I would probably bypass the “ham method” and choose the “1 800” method instead, simply because I don’t know if the NCS will have a clue as to what I’m talking about and since it does not meet the criteria of a normal “severe storm report”. He may dismiss the report, since it doesn’t “fit the mold” though it is a valid report that the NWS would be interested in since it is a clear indication that the storm is becoming severe and possibly becoming a tornado threat. Also, if I’m in a strange city & I have a report I’ll use the 1 800 number, simply because the local NCS doesn’t know me from Adam’s housecat & doesn’t know if I am knowledgeable, overreacting or just a nut. The same is can be true if the NCS is local, but doesn’t know you, as I have had valid reports “over filtered” in the past. That said, I’m a solid believer in ham radio nets. I have been a net manager for many years, and on more than a one net. Emergency nets are what drew me into ham radio in the 1970’s & is what has kept me interested through the years. A good, well run net is second to none in doing what we do. Mark’s preferred method number three is the chatroom system. As an Operational Alert Member I monitor three chatrooms. I monitor the bmxspotterchat, the ABC33/40 spotter chat and the NWS bmxemachat. I also on occasion monitor other NWS chats. For instance Jackson Mississippi, so I can see what is heading our way. Valid reports, meaning not “leaf debris” reports or police scanner reports, posted on the BMXspotterchat and the ABC33/40 spotter chat I will “copy & paste” into the BMXEMAchat for the NWS. If the report is for an area outside the Birmingham County Warning Area (CWA), for instance Cullman, which is in the Huntsville CWA, I will go to the Huntsville NWS chat and paste it there. From a Net Control Station’s point of view the spotterchats are a dream come true. Sometimes you will receive weather warnings three minutes before the weather radio sounds. That’s warning time gained & that time gained can mean more lives saved. Incoming reports are very precise (accurate). While voice reports via radio can be garbled or misunderstood, reports via chat rooms usually cannot. I good example of a garbled RF report is the day Mark Rose of the NWS & I spent 30 minutes with an atlas trying to find “Del Ray Road by the Air Force base gate” in Montgomery where it was flooding. We couldn’t find the street and it didn’t help that Montgomery has two Air Force bases. We called the reporting station back repeatedly and he kept saying “Del Ray Road” and I finally asked him to give the street name phonetically, which he did. It was “Dalraida Road by Gunter AFB”. The only drawback to the spotterchat system is that there is no guarantee that an ALERT member will be monitoring. If we are expecting severe weather there is usually someone there, but, if an isolated severe weather event occurs, there may be no one to relay the report, as we may be at work or tending to personal affairs. More times than not though, even in “good weather” someone is lurking. If not, use 1-800-856-0758 method. The NWS is branching out into social media and electronically. You may submit storm reports online at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/StormReport/SubmitReport.php?site=bmx You may email you reports to: SR-BMX.StormReports@noaa.gov The NWS has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/US.NationalWeatherService.Birmingham.gov Last, but, not least, the NWS does Twitter: https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.srh.noaa.gov%2Fbmx%2F&screen_name=NWSBirmingham&tw_p=followbutton&variant=2.0&xd_token=f0e921c41af8b8 These are good backup methods. But, for severe weather reports, since time is our #1 enemy, I would still use one of the first three methods described. You might ask is “what if the Birmingham NWS office goes down?” All National Weather Service Forecast Offices have emergency plans in case an office becomes disabled. For instance the Peachtree City (Atlanta) Forecast Office is the backup office for the Birmingham office and vice versa. If Birmingham goes down, severe storm reports would be sent to Peachtree City & they would issue the warnings, as would Birmingham if Atlanta goes down. What can knock out a WFO? Computer failure, power failure and the backup generator being knocked out or running out of fuel (which has been known to happen) & physical damage to the office, either weather related or man-made – accidental or otherwise. All Forecast Offices have multiple redundant emergency plans, and it is useful for us to have some familiarity with ours. Our “Home” of course is the NWS Birmingham Birmingham’s Emergency Number is 1-800-856-0758 Our NWSChat address is bmxemachat Amateur Radio Operations are conducted by ALERT at K4NWS HF Operations can be conducted by offsite liaison on 3.965 MHz with backup of 7.245 MHz Our Primary Backup is the NWS Peachtree City (Atlanta) Peachtree City’s Emergency Number is 1-866-763-4466 The NWSchat address is ffcchat Amateur Radio Operations are conducted by Georgia Skywarn at WX4PTC When activated, HF Operations are conducted on 3.975 MHz Our Secondary Backup is NWS Huntsville Huntsville’s Emergency Number is 1-256-890-8503 The NWSchat address is hunchat Amateur Radio Operations are conducted by North Alabama Skywarn at WX4HUN When activated, HF Operations are conducted on 3.965 MHz with backup of 7.245 MHz Our Tertiary Backup is NWS Little Rock Little Rock’s Emergency Number is 1-800-482-8471 Little Rock’s NWSchat address is lzkchat Amateur Radio Operations are conducted by the Central Arkansas Radio Emergency Net (CAREN) with the W5DI wide coverage system. When activated, HF Operations are conducted on 3.9875 MHz It is a rare occasion when NWS Birmingham goes down, but it has happened before, due to computer failure. Peachtree City has gone down due to a power failure, both primary and backup. The Huntsville Office had to “duck and cover” due to a tornado bearing down on the office, as has the Birmingham Office on occasion. How do you know when something is awry? You will know that Birmingham has gone down if you see NWS products for Central Alabama being issued by the Peachtree City office, if you dial the emergency line and it is out of order or if K4NWS or ALERT informs you that the BMX is temporarily out of commission. In that event that you have severe weather reports and Birmingham is down you should call Peachtree City’s emergency number. Report just as you would with Birmingham, except mention that you are in Alabama, as they may have the same county names. NWSchats of other WFO’s may be accessed by any Operational Member with NWSchat capability. Simply go to the buddy list, click “buddies”, then click “join a chat” & on the window that pops up enter the chatroom name, such as Atlanta’s chat which is ffcchat. Click “join a chat” & you are there. If you want to permanently add the room you click “conversation” on the chat window & then hit “add”. Yet another window pops up & you can name the chatroom under “alias”. Then hit add & you are done. As for Amateur operations, the chances are very good that their ham group will not be active since Georgia may not be experiencing severe weather, just as ALERT usually wouldn’t be activated unless the Birmingham CWA is being affected. Communications capability does exist however, as K4NWS & WX4PTC have contacted each other via 220 Mhz in the past during tests. With WX4PTC initiating the link via their 440 link system and then tying into 220 Mhz In the unlikely event that Atlanta & Birmingham goes down, then resort to Huntsville. And, in the very remote chance all three offices go down, Little Rock becomes your choice. Why Little Rock, you may ask? If we have a situation where all three WFO’s are dead, this would indicate either the weirdest of bad luck or that a regional disaster has occurred on the scale of Katrina or worse. So Little Rock, which is located outside of the Southeastern US, is the choice. I will mention that there have been occasional exceptions to the procedures given above, as I remember the Mobile office backing us up once. But, these are the general rules. ………………………………………………………………………………………. Mark’s Almanac August was originally named “Sextilis”, the sixth Roman month. It was renamed August in honor of Caesar Augustus & was lengthened to 31 days, to equal Julius Caesar’s month of July. August is hot and humid & summer temperatures remain at or near their summer peak. The rapid vegetation growth of spring is over, and, since conditions are now perfect for the growth of mold, fungi & germs, plants have a “used” look, which is enhanced if rainfall is scarce. In August the choir of cicadas whine in the afternoon & towards the end of the month the big Yellow Sulphur Butterflies will begin heading to the South-Southeast, giving hints of their soon upcoming fall migration & cats will begin to hint of growing their winter coats. Hurricane breeding grounds in August are the Atlantic, with Low Latitude storms forming off of Africa crossing the Ocean and either threatening the Eastern Seaboard or striking the Leeward Islands, entering the Caribbean and then striking the Yucatan, or the Western or Northern Gulf coast. Breeding grounds also include the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. 21% of a year’s Hurricanes occur in August. 85 to 95% of land falling Hurricanes have not occurred by August 15. Mercury, Mars & Jupiter shine low in the east-southeast during dawn, with Jupiter being the highest and, Mars being a little lower and Mercury lower still. Venus shines brilliantly low in the west in the evening twilight. Saturn glows in the Southwest just after dark, with the slightly dimmer star Spica to his lower right. Uranus is in Pisces & Neptune is in Aquarius in the Southern sky before the beginning of dawn. August’s first full moon is “Fruit Moon” in Cherokee Folklore, “Women’s Moon” among the Choctaw, “Sturgeon Moon” by the Algonquin and at one time was called “Dog Days Moon by the Colonial Americans. This will occur August 21 at 8:44 PM CDT. If you want to see meteors, August is your month, as the Perseid Meteor Shower peaks on August 12, with 50 to 60 meteors per hour. This shower ranks as the best of the best and if you can get away from city lights you should have a good show. Last but certainly not the least; don’t forget that August is National Goat Cheese Month. This Olde Goat told you so. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. When you get a chance, “talk up ALERT”. Let people know who we are, what we do & why they should be involved. For YOU are the best recruitment tool we have. This month’s meeting will be on August 13 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport. Dues are still due, so if you didn’t pay your dues last month, bring that bag of money with you and keep your membership current. Mark / WD4NYL Editor ALERT www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx