SKYWARN Newsletter #211

---

Hello to all...

SKYWARN Strategy Meeting Minutes from Wednesday October 22nd, 2003...

SKYWARN Severe Weather Statistics for 2003 Compared to 2002...

Weather Support for 9/11/2001 from the Southern New England WX Conference...

***Newsletter Issued 11/25/03.

SKYWARN Strategy Meeting Minutes from Wednesday October 22nd, 2003...

The following is the minutes to the SKYWARN Strategy Meeting that was

held on Wednesday October 22nd, 2003 at the National Weather Service

in Taunton, Massachusetts. The following people attended the meeting:

W1MPN-Mike Neilsen Eastern Mass. ARES Section Emergency Coordinator

N1VUX-Bill Ricker Greater Boston Area SKYWARN Co-Coordinator

N1FY-Carl Aveni South Shore SKYWARN/NWS Taunton Operator

N1PJ-PJ Howe Worcester County SKYWARN Coordinator

K1CJS-Chris Smith Fall River Area ARES/RACES/SKYWARN

KA1JJM-Ray Weber Western Mass. SKYWARN Coordinator

KI1I-Peter Beauregard Westfield RACES Radio Officer

WX1CT-Phil Berkowitz Connecticut State SKYWARN Coordinator

KD1CY-Rob Macedo ARES SKYWARN Coordinator for NWS Taunton

William Babcock NWS Taunton SKYWARN Program Leader

The first item was a presentation on 2003 reviewing the year’s events

and previewing what needs to be done from a 2004 perspective. The

presentation was well received by those that attended.

The next item discussed was SKYWARN training for 2004. There will be

a reduction in the amount of sites done across Southern New England.

After doing 20+ sessions for 2 years, resources at NWS have stretched

to their limit. For 2004, NWS Taunton is committed to doing 16 SKYWARN

training sessions. The following locations have been chosen:

Taunton, Mass.

Smithfield RI

Boston, Mass.

Outer Cape (Provincetown to Chatam area)

Willimantic, CT

Farmington, CT

Sturbridge-Southbridge, Mass. Area

Washington County, RI

Keene, NH

Merrimack, NH

Essex County, Mass.

Billerica-Chelmsford, Mass. Area

Walpole, Mass.

Quincy-Braintree area.

Gardner-Fitchburg Mass. Area

Williamsburg, Mass.

Other items discussed on the SKYWARN training were as follows:

-The SKYWARN training sessions will be shortened to 2.5 hours per Bob

Thompson, Meteorologist-In-Charge of NWS Taunton. Several Ham Radio

Coordinators raised a point that they want to be involved in the

process of shortening the slides to make sure necessary items are not

cut out and the proper items are cut out of the presentation. Bill

Babcock was agreeable on making this happening.

-There will be a new child’s spotter card for children under the age

of 16 to distinguish "junior" spotters from adult spotters. Provisions

will need to be made for Amateur Operators and Boy Scouts who will

most likely give more pertinent information than children that simply

go to the training with their parents.

-Several requests have come in for issuance of EMT credits for

SKYWARN training. NWS Taunton does not issue the credits but NWS will

now make a blank "certification" letter that will certify that people

in public safety looking for EMT credits to give this to their served

agency as proof they attended a SKYWARN training class and receive

the appropriate number of EMT credits. The names can be filled in as

people get their Advanced SKYWARN Spotter training booklet and

SKYWARN Spotter ID cards.

-Phil Berkowitz, WX1CT, brought up a point that NWS Brookhaven,

New York provides him with all of the spotters (both Hams and non

Hams) and has Phil manage that portion of the database for the

weather office. Similar ideas have been passed to NWS Taunton

forecasters but there has been reluctance to pass this work to the

Ham Coordinators due to privacy issues. A proposal for doing a similar

operation at NWS Taunton will be made and sent to NWS management and

SKYWARN Program leader, Bill Babcock.

The next topic discussed was SKYWARN Appreciation Day. SKYWARN

Appreciation Day is scheduled from Friday December 5th, 2003-Saturday

December 6th, 2003 from 7 PM Friday through 7 PM Saturday. The

schedule of NWS Taunton’s participation is that operations will be

from 7PM-Midnight Friday Night and 7 AM-7PM on Saturday. Operators

and a schedule of what repeaters will be covered at what times during

the day will be written up soon. After discussion, QSL cards will be

done for SKYWARN Appreciation Day. We will request SASE’s

(Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes) for the QSL cards, use the

Boston Amateur Radio Club’s mailing address and Bill-N1VUX will

coordinate the making of the QSL card with one of the Ham’s from the

Boston Amateur Radio Club. Various types of logging programs were

discussed for the Appreciation Day including CT logging and another

logger that has a 45-day free trail period. This will be finalized

before SKYWARN Appreciation Day.

The next topic discussed was the NWS Open House. As of the writing

of this meeting minutes, between security issues at NWS and

scheduling conflicts, it does not appear likely that a NWS Open House

will occur in 2004. This may be revisited at a later time.

The next item discussed was the continued usage of Echolink and IRLP

nodes. The current usage of Ray Weber’s IRLP node and the new nodes

that were on the air in the Greater New Bedford, Mass area were

discussed along with usage of nodes in Johnston, RI (formerly

Barrington, RI) and Scituate, Mass. Discussion on better coordination

of nodes for both Western Massachusetts and Connecticut for IRLP

and Echolink nodes was discussed between Bill Ricker-N1VUX,

Ray Weber-KA1JJM, Philip Berkowitz-WX1CT and Rob Macedo-KD1CY.

The discussion also surrounded continued liaison to Litchfield

County CT for reports to be relayed to NWS Taunton so that

upstream warnings in NWS Taunton’s area can be warned for if

ground truth reports are occurring.

The next topic discussed was email usage for NWS reporting. With two

email addresses, one provided by Phil-N1XTB that can be accessed via

Packet and Internet email, and another email address that has been

provided from NWS Taunton purchasing dial-up Internet for use at the

SKYWARN desk, reports could be funneled through these email addresses

and monitored by Amateur Radio SKYWARN Coordinators and then the

reports could be forwarded to NWS Taunton from email via the spotter

line. This would be used mainly for wintertime criteria and not for

summertime severe weather criteria where the timing of reports is

so very critical. This plan has not been fully unveiled yet and

will depend on how much of this can be worked out in the

coming weeks. This model would allow the forecasters to get the

reports but not have to monitor email in order to get them. This

would be a "gap" filler until NWS Taunton puts together a spotter

input database that would allow forwarding of wintertime reports

via the web site.

The next topic discussed was the Storm Ready Program. Work is

currently being done with Taunton, Massachusetts, Smithfield, RI,

Merrimack, NH and Manchester, CT. Other towns and cities, which have

expressed interest, are being handled under a prioritized list with

new towns and cities in the states of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and

Connecticut being emphasized. Taunton, Massachusetts will be having

their ceremony on Monday December 1st at 10 AM for becoming a Storm

Ready community. Further updates will follow in later SKYWARN

Newsletters.

Bill Babcock brought up no other topics for this meeting. The meeting

ended at 9:30 PM and a "meeting after the meeting" occurred between

several coordinators between 9:30 and 11 PM that evening that was

very fruitful for those who remained and talked afterwards.

The next SKYWARN Strategy Meeting is scheduled for Saturday March 6th

at 10 AM at NWS Taunton.

SKYWARN Severe Weather Statistics for 2003 Compared to 2002...

The following are Severe Weather Statistics for the 2003 SKYWARN season

to date. This information should help support where training is needed

and how well the state of the SKYWARN program is. The information is

based on LSR's and on the Amateur Radio log sheets for each event

along with any reports received within a few days after the event.

Here is the amount of activations of SKYWARN in 2003 and the first

formal activation date versus SKYWARN in 2002:

SKYWARN 2003

SKYWARN Formal Activations with Formal Ops at NWS Taunton: 9

SKYWARN Formal Activations without Formal Ops at NWS Taunton: 3

SKYWARN Self-Activations (Activations without call from NWS): 1

Total SKYWARN Activations as of November 28th, 2003: 13

First formal SKYWARN Activation of the year: Friday June 27th, 2003.

SKYWARN 2002

SKYWARN Formal Activations with Formal Ops at NWS Taunton: 12

SKYWARN Formal Activations without Formal Ops at NWS Taunton: 2

SKYWARN Self Activations (Activation without call from NWS): 8

Total SKYWARN Activations as of November 28th, 2002: 22

First Formal SKYWARN Activation of the year: Friday April 19th, 2002.

Here is a year over year analysis beginning with analysis of this year

through November 28th, 2003. This report only includes convective

events. It does not include general synoptic scale wind events. It also

does not include flash flood events that occurred during some of the

severe weather events.

Note: Data percentages for either year's report do not equal 100% due

to rounding.

Reports Relayed Via Amateur Radio and Supporting Contacts within Amateur

Radio Operator Resources:

SKYWARN 2003

5/28 2 of 2 100%

6/23 4 of 5 80%

6/27 2 of 3 66.7%

7/1 1 of 3 33%

7/18 0 of 1 0%

7/21 2 of 2 100%

7/22 6 of 6 100%

8/6 4 of 5 80%

8/13 8 of 10 80%

8/17 6 of 9 66.7%

8/22 16 of 17 94.1%

9/23 3 of 4 75%

9/29 1 of 1 100%

Total 55 of 68 80.9%

SKYWARN Spotter Reports from Spotter Line/NWS Employee (Non-Ham)/TV

Meteorologists:

SKYWARN 2003

5/28 0 of 2 0%

6/23 1 of 5 20%

6/27 1 of 3 66.7%

7/1 1 of 3 33.3%

7/18 0 of 1 0%

7/21 0 of 2 0%

8/6 1 of 5 20%

8/13 2 of 10 20%

8/17 2 of 9 22.2%

8/22 1 of 17 5.9%

9/23 0 of 4 0%

9/29 0 of 1 0%

Total 9 of 68 13.24%

Direct Public Safety and/or Public Reports Not Relayed by Amateur Radio

All other dates had no reports except for the following:

7/18 1 of 1 100% -Public Report.

9/23 1 of 4 25% -Report from State Police.

Total 2 of 68 2.94%

Reports Relayed Via Amateur Radio and Supporting Contacts within Amateur

Radio Operator Resources:

SKYWARN 2002

4/19: 0 of 0 0% ---First Formal Activation of the year.

5/2: 1 of 1 100%

5/27: 5 of 7 71.4%

5/28: 2 of 2 100%

5/31: 32 of 41 78.44%

6/2: 2 of 2 100%

6/5: 1 of 1 100%

6/16: 15 of 21 71.4%

6/17: 2 of 2 100%

6/22: 1 of 1 100%

6/23: 0 of 0 0% ---Formal activation and Ops Requested.

6/26: 0 of 0 0% ---Formal activation and Ops Requested.

6/27: 10 of 10 100%

7/4: 5 of 6 83.33%

7/15: 17 of 22 77.72%

7/19: 2 of 2 100%

7/23: 35 of 44 79.54%

7/29: 0 of 0 0% ---Self-Activation initiated with no reports.

8/2: 32 of 35 91.42%

8/13: 1 of 1 100%

8/16: 5 of 6 83.33%

168 of 204 82.35%

SKYWARN Spotter Reports from Spotter Line/NWS Employee (Non-Ham)/TV

Meteorologists:

SKYWARN 2002

4/19: 0 of 0 0% ---First Formal Activation of the year.

5/2: 0 of 1 0%

5/27: 2 of 7 28.57%

5/28: 0 of 2 0%

5/31: 8 of 41 78.44%

6/2: 0 of 2 0%

6/5: 0 of 1 0%

6/16: 6 of 21 28.5%

6/17: 0 of 2 0%

6/22: 0 of 1 0%

6/23: 0 of 0 0% ---Formal activation and Ops Requested.

6/26: 0 of 0 0% ---Formal activation and Ops Requested.

6/27: 0 of 10 0%

7/4: 1 of 6 16.67%

7/15: 5 of 22 22.77%

7/19: 0 of 2 0%

7/23: 8 of 44 18.18%

7/29: 0 of 2 0% ---Self-Activation initiated.

8/2: 3 of 35 8.57%

8/13: 0 of 1 0%

8/16: 0 of 6 0%

33 of 204 16.18%

Note: Any public reports for 2002 were wrapped into spotter line

reports.

Direct Public Safety Reports Not Relayed by Amateur Radio:

All other dates had no reports except for the following:

Other Dates: 0 of 157 0%

5/31: 1 of 41 2.44%

8/16: 1 of 6 16.67%

2 of 204 0.98%

From this data, several trends are noted:

1.) 2003 was well below 2002 in terms of severe weather and was

the lowest severe weather season in 10 years.

2.) There was a slight drop in reports from Amateur Radio with

80.8% of all reports being from Amateur Radio versus 82.35%

last year. This is most likely due to the lack of significant

severe weather in 2003 versus 2002.

3.) A slight increase was noted in public safety and public

reports with roughly 1.5% from public safety and another 1.5%

coming from the public in 2003. Again, this is most likely due

to the lack of signficant severe weather during this timeframe.

4.) Spotter participation via the spotter line deceased by roughly

3% to 13.24% in 2003 versus 16.18% in 2002. Again, this is most

likely due to the lack of significant severe weather during

this timeframe.

5.) Formal activations were roughly 25% lower than last year.

SKYWARN Self Activation was roughly 77% lower than last year.

This is believed to be caused by the fact that there were less

events overall and therefore less self-activation events. Also,

several of the severe weather events had flash flooding as

well and this resulted in formal activation with Ops at NWS

Taunton for smaller severe weather events that also had

flash flood reports mixed into the convective event.

This will most likely be the final summary for this year unless SKYWARN

Severe Weather Activations occur again before the end of the year.

Weather Support for 9/11/2001 from the Southern New England WX Conference...

During the Southern New England Weather Conference, Gary Conte,

Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWS Brookhaven, New York and

Dave Manning, Severe Weather Program Leader for NWS Sterling Virginia

gave a presentation on weather support during the 9/11/2001 terrorist

attacks.

Gary Conte described how NWS Brookhaven provided logistical and weather

support for the 9/11 terrorist incident. He also described tools at

their disposal for a chemical/biological or nuclear type situation

where the plume could be mapped as it emanates from the point of

impact. Gary stated that in their situation they did not have Amateur

Radio Operators at the NWS in Brookhaven, New York.

Dave Manning then did his presentation on support for 9/11/2001 as

their office covers the area of the Pentagon disaster. Dave described

how communications and interoperability were a serious issue. Each

agency involved at the Pentagon disaster site had different

capabilities to communicate and NWS had difficulty understanding the

incident command strucuture. Amateur Radio Operators were active for

much of 9/11 from NWS Sterling, Virginia to assist the NWS with

communications when the attack on the Pentagon occurred.

During the Pentagon disaster clean-up, Tornadoes hit the Wasington

DC metro area on September 24th, 2001. One of the tornadoes went right

through the Pentagon parking lot. Significant lead time was given for

this event and everyone evacuated the Pentagon site except for 2 FBI

people who could not leave the incident as it was considered a crime

scene. No one was injured or killed.

Dave went on to describe the lessons learned from his office's

perspective. Points brought up were as follows:

-WX Support should start immediately.

-Secure weather web-site for disseminating information worked well.

-NWS Sterling must learn the incident command structure and follow the

flow of information working closely with local, state and federal

partners.

-Memorandum of Unstatanding developed with the state of Maryland where

by NWS is the sole origin of all civil emergency messages within the

state.

-NWS to get involved in exercises for disaster support.

-Local office plan modified when increased risk for terror incidents

is indicated.

For a chemical or radiological incident, the NWS Sterling

Virginia office has resources and equipment deployed such as a NOAA

Spill Response team and their office now has a contingency where

they have developed a schedule to ensure 24 hour coverage for decision

makers. NWS Sterling, Virginia can also utilize dispersion forecast

models such as Cameo which is a 1 Kilometer dispersion model and

the HYSPLIT model. HYSPLIT is a high resolution model

where a lot of data can be fed into the model and can be used for

dispersion over an area of over 10 kilometers. It is very useful for

radiological or HAZMAT incidents. There is also a low resolution

HYSPLIT model via the Internet which is good to get a quick glance

of where a plume from a radiological or HAZMAT incident could go

based on the wind field and other factors. This model is available

to NWS via a secure web site. The issue is having a model that can

accurately charcterize dispersion in the 1-10 Kilometer range. NWS

also have links to the operational ETA model that can assist with

plume dispersion. For high impact sites, 4 model runs per day could

be done in the event of a chemical or radiological incident whether

it be HAZMAT or a terrorist incident.

Finally, Dave Manning noted that the Weather Radio, Civil Emergency

Messages and the secure web-site will be very useful in the case of

a future terrorist incident to assist with communications and

interoperability issues.

Based on this presentation, NWS Taunton may begin adopting some of

these similiar practices including Ham Operators at NWS Taunton if

a terrorist incident were to occur in the NWS Taunton County Warning

Area. Any details on procedures for terrorist incidents will follow

in later newsletters.

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)

ARES SKYWARN Coordinator

Southeast Massachusetts ARES District Emergency Coordinator

SEMARA ARES Emergency Coordinator

Pager #: (508) 354-3142

Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)

Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)

Work Phone #: 1-800-445-2588 Ext.: 72929 (8 AM-5 PM)

Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com

http://users.rcn.com/rmacedo

Back to the SKYWARN Newsletter Archive