SKYWARN™ Recognition Day (SRD) 2018 takes place on Saturday, December 1, from 0000 until 2400 UTC (11/30 1900 – 12/1 1900 Eastern). Developed in 1999 by the National Weather Service (NWS) and ARRL, SRD celebrates the contributions that SKYWARN volunteers make to the NWS mission, the protection of life and property. During SKYWARN™ Recognition Day, special event stations will be on the air from NWS offices, contacting radio amateurs around the world.
The object of SRD is for amateur stations to exchange contact
information with as many National Weather Service stations as
possible on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, and 2 meters, plus 70 centimeters.
Contacts via repeaters are permitted. Stations should exchange call
sign, signal report, and location plus a quick description of the
weather at your location (e.g., sunny, partly cloudy, windy, rainy,
etc.). EchoLink and IRLP nodes, including the Voice over Internet
Protocol Weather Net (VoIP-WX),
are expected to be active as well.
SSB, FM, AM, RTTY, CW, and PSK31 are modes that can be utilized
during the event. While working digital modes, special event stations
will append “NWS” to their call signs (e.g., N0A/NWS). It’s
suggested that during SRD operations a non-NWS volunteer serve as a
station control operator.
With the official arrival of Summer on June 20, I expect most of us feel that considering the high temperatures and severe weather we’ve experienced, it seems like Summer has been around for awhile already.
A couple weather issues that we need to keep in mind are lightning and the effects high temperatures. Often lightning concerns take a back seat relative to our activities but the saying “When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors” really should be followed.
Along with lightning concerns we need to take into consideration the high temperatures that can effect people of all ages. Parents and grand-parents need to be especially aware of the high temperatures when they have children in the vehicle. In our hectic world it is too easy to get caught up in thinking ahead of ourselves. Try to keep in the current moment to avoid any tragedies! Also remember folks who might need extra attention during high temperatures and severe weather.
Try to be aware of your location to be able to articulate where you are in the event a 911 call is made. Many 911 centers don’t have the cell phone location ability.
The National Weather Service, Spring Safety Campaign is in effect. There are many aspects of Spring weather that can ruin a good day and we have to be aware of such adverse weather. Being aware and recognizing is only part of the equation, we have to follow the advise to remain safe. One that this area is familiar with is flooding. The catch phrase of “Turn Around, Don’t Drown” is so appropriate to safety but too often is not followed. Driving into high water places not only the driver and passengers but then involves the responders who have to jeopardize their lives.
I briefly looked at this site before but today I decided to spend a little more time looking. It was worth the time! I found the GOES-East GEOColor screens, they are really interesting and the resolution is quite good. Be sure to click on the GeoColor Loop, located in the GeoColor panel, it provides an animated view of the satellite’s images. This page updates so be sure to check back to see the current satellite images. Be sure to adjust the “LOOP” as this will enable you to see more or fewer images. You will be able to see the lights of the cities as the grey-line moves across the earth!
A full disk image can be seen at GOES-EastImage viewer web-page. This image, considering the time, depicts the grey-line as the earth rotates and night time occurs.
The National weather Service has expanded some experimental winter weather informational pages. I believe that you will find these pages interesting and informative. They may assist you in planning for upcoming winter weather events in you locale. Be sure to scroll down the page and also check out the four tabs. There is a lot of information on this page.
Remember this is experimental, hopefully it will prove out to be well received information and become a standard page to refer to. There is a link to provide feed back, if you are so inclined to do so.
This year the official date for the SkyWarn™ Recognition Day event is December 2. The event will be in operation from 0000 UTC – 2400 UTC, December 2, 2017.
This is a rather simple event, the purpose is to contact as many National Weather Service stations as possible on 80 meter – 70cm bands with repeater contacts accepted as well. The contact exchange includes: your call sign, signal report, QTH, and a very brief description of your weather conditions. You can print your own certificate at the end of the event, as detailed on the ARRL web site listed below.
Clicking on the icon for the NWS office, on the map, will enable you to obtain information such as frequencies and operating times relative that office.
Remember to keep a log, or use the handy .pdf checklist that can be found under the RESOURCES heading and click on the SKYWARN™ Recognition Checklist line, on the NWS SkyWarn recognition web-page.
Just as a personal side note – this is yet another opportunity to help improve your operating skills whether it relates to everyday operating, contesting, and/or emergency preparedness.
Sometimes things do not all ways as they appear. SkyWarn training may conjure up ideas of intense detailed training for the likes of those who are meteorologists. No so! This training is for the everyday person on the street, so to say. The training gives the everyday person the background to recognize and report on severe weather issues that may impact themselves, families, friends and neighbors. Since severe weather is one of those events that can happen to everyone, not just someone else, getting the training to help prevent injuries and maybe even damages can be an asset. Whether you are part of an organized group that participates in SkyWarn or an individual who would rather do it on their own, you need the training to pass along the appropriate information to the Weather Service Forecast Offices, or to be able to protect yourself. The training that is made available is not something intuitive that we are born with.
Consider these two topics, tornadoes and thunderstorms, that are covered in the SkyWarn training. Sure seem interesting don’t they! Not all that difficult to learn and understand just the main points and at times some added details about these weather events that we see in our general area.
Register by sending an email advising that you want to attend the SkyWarn training to the Clearfield County Assistant EMA Director at: “smignot at clearfield911 dot com” The training is scheduled for July 19, 2017 at 6:30 PM at the Clearfield County 911 Center at 911 Leonard Street just east of Clearfield off Rte. 322. Talk-in on the 147.315 repeater.
The National Weather Service Flood Safety Awareness Week Begins March 27. Considering we experience flooding in our area rather often, it is likely worth your time to check out the National Weather Service flood safety week web page at http://www.weather.gov/ctp/floodSafetyWeek
The week starts out with information on the continuing effort to modernize the hydrologic information that enables the general public to be aware of water levels in bodies of water in their areas. An interactive, real time hydrologic map of PA.
Toward the bottom of Monday’s page are a couple downloads in .pdf format that may be of interest.
One of my favorite topics is the “Turn Around Don’t Drown” information that is available, that EVERYONE should follow. If people do not follow the simple phrase they are risking not only their own life and those who may be in the vehicle with them but also the lives of the rescue responders. The “Turn Around Don’t Drown” campaign is highlighted Tuesday.
The balance of the week includes; the causes and severity of floods, flood insurance and flood safety.
Please take some time to refresh yourself of flooding issues and the safety points that everyone should be aware of.
I know this is not directly related to amateur radio but it is directly related to neighborhood safety.
It may even be directly related to your safety!
If there is anything true about our world it is change! The changes on the NWS pages has been moved to April, as the information states.: “Effective April 4, 2017, NWS will implement the next version of the forecast pages. Highlights will include a standardized look and feel, a mobile-ready landing page, and a completely new architecture with a modernized API. Please review the Service Change Notice for complete details.”
As part of our continued effort to modernize weather.gov, the National Weather Service (NWS) is upgrading our point forecast, zone forecast, and product pages. Once these changes go live on March 7, all existing bookmarks to forecast.weather.gov will change. Links to a forecast page will display an error message that includes a URL to the new location. You will need to update your bookmarks to continue to access our forecasts quickly after the upgrade. After March 7, the new URL can also be found by searching for your location from forecast.weather.gov or www.weather.gov. These changes will not impact office pages located at www.weather.gov
If you run an automated process to get NWS data from forecast.weather.gov, you will need to switch to the new developer API by March 7. Specifications for the new API can be found here.
The primary focus of the upgrade is to make the forecast pages more reliable during weather events, but there are some new benefits of new forecast pages that include:
Addition of 7-day hourly forecast information to the point forecast page
A new mobile-friendly landing and graphical/tabular forecast page
Low-bandwidth optimization for all pages, on a partial roll-out at launch
Option to automatically detect your location on a mobile device
A new widget mode that allows you to customize the information on the point forecast
We overhauled the architecture of our application platform to provide a more stable and consistent service to meet the demand of severe weather events. The platform also introduces a modernized API that will make it easier for web developers to create high-quality applications and services to share NWS data. The updated web site now provides a complete mobile-friendly experience with optimizations for low bandwidth and customized weather widgets. We also have new data centers located in College Park, MD, and Boulder, CO, to provide 100% backup capability for the operational data used within the forecast process.
We look forward to providing you with useful and timely information using our improved connectivity and new design.
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