SKYWARN Newsletter #238

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Hello to all....

Winter Weather Preparedness Week in Southern New England....

Thanksgiving Day Nor'easter Brings Nasty Conditions to the Region....

Additional SKYWARN Recognition Day Updates to Be Posted This week....

Newsletter Covers Summaries of Past SKYWARN Coordinator Meetings...

SKYWARN Coordinators Strategy Meeting Summary from November 2006....

SKYWARN Coordinators Strategy Meeting Summary from March 2006....

Highlights of SKYWARN Coordinator's Meetings from 2005....

Newsletter Issued: 11/26/2006.

Winter Weather Preparedness Week in Southern New England....

The week of November 25th through December 2nd is Winter Weather

Preparedness Week in Southern New England. Starting on Monday

November 28th, 2006, the National Weather Service will be posting

Public Information Statements on Winter Weather preparedness. As

the statements are issued they will be posted to the SKYWARN

Newsletter email list.

Thanksgiving Day Nor'easter Brings Nasty Conditions to the Region....

The Thanksgiving Day Nor'easter produced nasty conditions in

Southern New England. Rainfall amounts of 2-5" were common

across the region with measured wind gusts in the 45-55 MPH range.

Measured wind gusts of 52 MPH were reported in the Marstons Mills

section of Barnstable, 47 MPH in Acushnet, Massachusetts, and 47 MPH

in Scituate, Massachusetts. Isolated pockets of trees and wires

down were reported in Warwick, RI, Fall River, Hingham and Dartmouth,

Massachusetts. Urban/poor drainage flooding was reported in Newton,

and North Andover, Massachusetts. The conditions made for a nasty

Thanksgiving Day across the region but paved the way for

gorgeous weekend weather after Thanksgiving Day. The Local Storm

Report and Public Information Statement will be posted to the

email list in the next few days.

Additional SKYWARN Recognition Day Updates to Be Posted This week....

SKYWARN Recognition Day Amateur Radio updates on NWS Taunton and

national level operations will be sent out to the email list as

things change this week. It is noted that there is the potential

for a significant storm during part of the SKYWARN Recognition

Day timeframe but the details on that storm at the time of this

newsletter writing is uncertain. Updates on the storm and its

impact on SKYWARN Recognition Day will be posted via the email

list as needed.

Newsletter Covers Summaries of Past SKYWARN Coordinator Meetings...

This newsletter will cover summaries of past SKYWARN Coordinator

Meetings. The SKYWARN Coordinator Strategy Meetings cover topics

in administering the Amateur Radio portion of the SKYWARN program

and goes over technical weather projects and how to maintain

strong execution within the SKYWARN program. Meeting summaries

have not been posted of late due to the active weather pattern

of the past 2 years. For this newsletter, there will be detailed

summaries on the 2 SKYWARN Strategy Meetings that were held in

2006. A higher level summary on the 2 SKYWARN Strategy Meetings

for 2005 will also be provided within this newsletter.

SKYWARN Coordinators Strategy Meeting Summary from November 2006....

The following is the SKYWARN Strategy Meeting Summary from the

November 11th, 2006 meeting at NWS Taunton. There were 24 people

in attendance at the meeting. The following is the list of who

participated:

W1ZSA-Roger Turner      Walpole EMA Director/Norfolk County SKYWARN

K1HRV-Dave Doe          Walpole Deputy EMA Director/Norfolk County SKYWARN

KB1KQW-Jim Palmer North Shore Mass. ARES & SKYWARN Emergency Coordinator

KB1MRH-Matt Dempsey     North Shore Mass. ARES Assistant Emergency Coordinator

KX1KTY-Gordon Gravelese North Shore Mass. ARES Assistant Emergency Coordinator

KA1NCF-Eric Horwitz     North Shore Mass. ARES District Emergency Coordinator

K1GMG-Gregg Gallant     Hartford-Tolland County CT Assistant SKYWARN Coordinator

WD4JZo-Jim Blaine Hillsborough County NH SKYWARN Coordinator

KB1IUZ-Steve Williams   Connecticut ARES Statewide SKYWARN Coordinator

KB1DGY-Bernie Dubb      Windham County, CT SKYWARN Coordinator

N1XRS-Tony Duarte South Coastal Mass. Asst. ARES/SKYWARN Coordinator

W1MPN-Mike Neilsen      Eastern Massachusetts ARRL Section Manager

N1JMA-Martin Mendelson  Rhode Island State SKYWARN Coordinator

N1VUX-Bill Ricker Metro Boston/Middlesex County SKYWARN Coordinator

KA1JJM-Ray Weber  Western Massachusetts SKYWARN Coordinator

N1QKO-Eric Tuller Western Massachusetts Assistant SKYWARN Coordinator

KA1RVR-Jay Carter New Hampshire state SKYWARN Coordinator

KD1CY-Rob Macedo  ARES SKYWARN Coordinator for NWS Taunton

N1FCM-James Dow         NWS Gray Maine SKYWARN Spotter

N1DOT-Ken Grimard NWS Gray Maine and Taunton Mass. SKYWARN Spotter

KB1NHD-Jerry Hume NWS Gray Maine SKYWARN and Cooperative Spotter

N1KTA-Thomas Berman     NWS Gray Maine Forecaster

KB1GHX-Glenn Field      NWS Taunton, Mass. Warning Coordination Meteorologist

William Babcock         NWS Taunton, Mass. SKYWARN Program Leader

The first item was a series of presentations on a review of severe

weather events from March through November of 2006. This year

was the busiest convective season in the 10 years the program

has been most active. While part of this is due to better spotting

and gathering of more reports, the sheer intensity of severe weather

and flood events over the region. A review of the May Floods of 2006,

the severe weather season and a plan for execution for 2007 was

presented along with a few words and an update on the VoIP Hurricane

Net which did not activate much but has had a continued reorganization

of net management was given as part of a presentation that was done

using a Power Point presentation and was well received by all that

attended.

The next item were videos that were prepared through the extraordinary

efforts of Matt Dempsey-KB1MRH and Jim Palmer-KB1KQW. Two of the videos

were shown at the Boxboro New England Division Convention and

were shown and distributed to the coordinators and forecasters

as part of outreach on the critical role SKYWARN Spotters and

Amateur Radio Operators play in forecasting. A third video, Amateur

Radio's Role in the NWS Taunton SKYWARN program was put together

for the Southern New England Weather Conference and was also

distributed to the coordinators and forecasters present. All of the

videos were very well received and we owe a tremendous debt of

gratitude for Matt and Jim for their efforts.

The next item discussed was Marine Spotter and SKYWARN training

classes and where to hold them. After much discussion, the following

are viewed as potential sites:

1.) Canton, CT (Through EMA Director contact)

2.) Harvard University (Harvard soon to become a Storm Ready University)

3.) Manchester, CT

4.) Willimantic, CT

5.) Six Flags in Agawam, Massachusetts (Six Flags is now a Storm Ready

Amusement Park.)

6.) Northwest Massachusetts

7.) Cape Cod and the Islands (Falmouth, Mass.)

8.) Greater New Bedford/Fall River Area

9.) Northwest Worcester County

10.) Southeast Worcester County

11.) Northern Rhode Island

12.) Southern Rhode Island

13.) Nashua, NH

14.) Cheshire County, NH

15.) Middlesex County, Mass. potentially the Marlborough, Mass. area

16.) Essex County, Mass.

The SKYWARN Training Schedule for 2007 will be more evenly loaded

with the goal being to obtain 4 sessions in April, 4 sessions in

May, 4 sessions in June, 2 sessions in July, and 2 sessions between

August and September. This more evenly loaded schedule will also

accommodate late requests for SKYWARN training as we move toward

the Fall months.

During this timeframe, online SKYWARN "refresher training" was

discussed. Once this class goes online, there will be a more

hardened requirement for spotters to be retrained either online

or in the classroom roughly every 5 years. It will also be possible

to put the SKYWARN refresher training on a CD if needed so that

the refresher training can be distributed and delivered to Amateur

radio Clubs. If there are Amateurs that have not been trained in

the classroom by a meteorologist at some point, they will not get a

spotter ID or information on the spotter phone line but will be better

trained to assist in SKYWARN Nets until they can actually take a

class run by a meteorologist.

Also discussed was the fact that the Prevailing Winds SKYWARN

Newsletter was not mailed out this year and that the approach will be

to move to an online Prevailing Winds newsletter and no longer send

mailings. It is hoped that spotters that have online access would

share the newsletters with other spotters and friends who may not

have online access so they can remain in the loop with the Prevailing

Winds Newsletter. This may also allow the Prevailing Winds newsletter

to be issued on a more frequent basis.

Concerning Marine Spotter classes, the team will get with Frank Nocera

to book 3-5 sessions across East Coastal Massachusetts, Cape Cod and

the Islands and South Coastal Rhode Island. Some areas that will be

reviewed include Ipswich, Cape Cod with the Harbormasters Association

and a location or two in Rhode Island.

As noted in the people that attended the SKYWARN Meeting, there were

3 Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters and a forecaster who is an Amateur

Radio Operator who attended the SKYWARN Meeting from the NWS Gray,

Maine Forecast Office. They came to learn more about the NWS Taunton

SKYWARN program and port back the successful components of the Taunton

program back to the NWS Gray, Maine Forecast Office. We discussed

with the NWS Gray, Maine team how we utilize the network of Amateur

Radio Operators to obtain the training site with a small level of

guidance from the forecast office who will give the Hams some

contacts for training locations when approached by people. The

process is that the forecaster staff at Taunton will give the Hams

the list of open dates and then the training schedule is built around

the open dates that there is enough staffing at the NWS office to

support doing the SKYWARN training. This information was well received

by the NWS Gray Maine team. Mike Cempa from the NWS Gray, Maine office

will be heading up the NWS Gray, Maine SKYWARN training. The slide

set from NWS Taunton on Power Point will be heavily leveraged to

do the training. It is hoped that training in the NWS Gray Maine

County Warning Area could start slowly and steadily beginning in the

Spring of 2007. If needed more information will be sent to the NWS

Gray Maine team to assure the booking of training occurs similar

to the successful NWS Taunton model.

As the discussion moved on to liaison paths within the NWS Taunton

County Warning Area, discussion on liaison between the NWS Gray

Maine and NWS Taunton County Warning Areas were discussed. The NWS

Gray Maine team mentioned a new analog microwave system that will

link up repeaters in Limmerick, Mount Hope, Sanford, Acton, and

Beckfield Maine together along with a repeater in Chester, NH.

These repeaters would allow potential paths into the Northern

Massachusetts corridor which means the system may be useable

as a liaison path. This is a work in progress and would be on

145.210 MHz.

Several of the Hams from NWS Gray Maine have

EchoLink access and the New England Network may be another way

to do access between the two NWS offices and spotter networks.

HF was discussed as another path with the 3943 and 7245 KHz

frequencies that are utilized for ARES in Massachusetts discussed

as potential frequencies for liaison if required. The NWS Gray,

Maine Office as of this newsletter writing does not have any

radios installed with any antennas on the NWS Gray Maine tower

and those issues are being worked at the office. Regardless of what

occurs with this aspect of things, the NWS Gray office is preparing to

be on during SKYWARN Recognition Day and testing of paths between

the NWS Taunton and Gray Maine offices will be done by whatever

means possible during that timeframe. Some paths that will be tried

include a path to the 145.47-Danvers Repeater to WX1BOX as well

as HF, VoIP and other repeaters that are in the area. It is noted

that the NWS Gray Maine Amateurs have started a weekly Wednesday

Night that is generating a lot of interest in SKYWARN in their region.

It is noted that several other repeaters to cover other parts of the

NWS Gray area and allow for a path between NWS Gray and NWS Caribou

currently exists.

Moving on to NWS Taunton liaison paths, a review of all paths were

completed and all seem in order. Some alternate paths that need

to be considered include on 6 Meters, where the Mount Wachusett

Repeater has not been running well and a different 6 Meter Repeater

may need to be considered for liaison work. Another path that is

also going to be investigated is assuring direct contact with

Hillsborough County, NH through the Westford and Danvers Repeaters

that are closest to that area along with access to the EchoLink-IRLP

New England Network. These items will be fine-tuned over time.

A suggestion was made by Tony Duarte-N1XRS that a map with a layover

of all cities in towns in the NWS Taunton County Warning Area be

put on the web with what repeaters are accessible in the city/town

selected. This would be part of a revamp of the NWS Taunton SKYWARN

web site that Rob-KD1CY is hosting on his RCN web site that is

being considered. This will be worked with Amateurs that maintain

the VoIP Hurricane Net and Eastern Massachusetts ARES and ARRL web

sites along with Rick Cabral-W1RJC who is also a web page specialist.

Along with this web site work, the Amateur Radio coordinating team

will assist Bill Babcock with working the online spotter class as

well as the Prevailing Winds Newsletter online so that the classroom

training and other work can be completed as outlined in this meeting

summary.

Concerning an update on NWS Taunton Ham Operations, a NWS Technical

Committee Meeting will be held to go over the needs for Ham

Operations. It was suppose to have occurred Thanksgiving week but

was canceled due to one of the Technician’s being ill that week. The

meeting will be rescheduled for the December or January timeframe. The

meeting will cover the following items:

1.) Move of the NWS Taunton station and if coax patch cables are

needed.

2.) New PC for the Ham station given that the previous one died in

early June 2006.

3.) Installation of the Icom IC-735 HF Radio once the Ham station

is moved.

4.) Discuss a means to utilize Internet via a cell phone card for

the Hams Ops area through the use of an EVDO router while maintaining

the dial-up account for redundancy. The cost would be 400 dollars for

the router and card and then a recurring 60 dollar per month charge

for the service.

Also, the spotter database is pretty close to completely updated with

all new spotters trained from 2006. When the Tech Committee Meeting

is held, the new spotter information will be given to Rob-KD1CY for

distribution to the SKYWARN Coordinators as needed.

SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) operations was discussed. NWS Taunton

station, WX1BOX will be active Friday 12/1 from 7 PM-12 AM and

Saturday 12/2 from 7 AM-7 PM. A QSL card will be offered and was

shown to everyone and it was well received. NWS Gray, Maine is

expected to be active as well under call-sign WX1GYX and specific

plans are to be determined.

The meeting then moved on to NWS Taunton topics. One item discussed

was the new HAZCOLLECT system which is a way for the NOAA All-Hazards

Radio to be used truly for all hazards purposes including Amber

Alerts, telephone outages and other types of hazards. Testing is

ongoing and it is hoped that this system will be put into service

in February of 2007 using a secure system with access in Washington

DC and at the state level and coordination to take place at those

levels with the NWS offices. There are complexities that are being

reviewed with Emergency Management at the state level particularly

in Connecticut where 3 different NWS offices cover Connecticut as

well as other states. A Public Information Statement on HAZCOLLECT

was recently issued and can be see at the following link:

http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KBOX/0611261530.nous41.html

Another item discussed was the P3 Hurricane Hunter Plane coming to

the NWS Taunton County Warning Area. It appears that this will happen

and will most likely be flying into the Quonset State Airport. Further

information will be available once it is confirmed in future SKYWARN

Newsletters.

Another item mentioned was that the Department of Homeland Security

has released 97,000 NOAA All Hazards Radios nationwide to schools

and other public locations. The city of Brockton has gotten these

radios and has deployed them in their schools, however, as of October,

the New Bedford area had yet to receive these radios and as of

November 11th, the town of Walpole had not seen these radios.

The next item was a presentation on damage assessment/storm surveying

that Glenn Field walked the entire group through on items to look

for on trees and structures when assessing wind damage. The Fujita

and Enhanced Fujita scales were briefly touched on in the presentation

and will be followed on further at the next SKYWARN Strategy Meeting

in 2007.

The last item discussed was that the National Climate Data Center (NCDC)

now has radar images from all events backed up all the way back to

1995 with some radar sites backed up all the way back to 1991. The

information is available free from the public and is updated to

within 2 days of the current day as part of its archival. It can

be viewed from the NCDC web site and the direct link to the radar

resources can be seen below:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/radar/radarresources.html

The next SKYWARN Strategy Meeting for Coordinators, Net Controls

and Alternate Net Controls will be Saturday March 10th, 2006 at 10

AM at NWS Taunton with a backup date of Saturday March 17th, 2006.

Special thanks to all those that attended the meeting.

SKYWARN Coordinators Strategy Meeting Summary from March 2006....

The following is the SKYWARN Strategy Meeting Summary from the

November 11th, 2006 meeting at NWS Taunton. There were 16 people

in attendance at the meeting. The following is the list of who

participated:

W1ZSA-Roger Turner      Walpole EMA Director/Norfolk County SKYWARN

K1HRV-Dave Doe          Walpole Deputy EMA Director/Norfolk County SKYWARN

KB1KQW-Jim Palmer North Shore Mass. ARES & SKYWARN Emergency Coordinator

K1GMG-Gregg Gallant     Hartford-Tolland County CT Assistant SKYWARN Coordinator

WD4JZo-Jim Blaine Hillsborough County NH SKYWARN Coordinator

KB1DGY-Bernie Dubb      Windham County, CT SKYWARN Coordinator

N1XRS-Tony Duarte South Coastal Mass. Asst. ARES/SKYWARN Coordinator

W1MPN-Mike Neilsen      Eastern Massachusetts ARRL Section Manager

N1JMA-Martin Mendelson  Rhode Island State SKYWARN Coordinator

N1VUX-Bill Ricker Metro Boston/Middlesex County SKYWARN Coordinator

N1QKO-Eric Tuller Western Massachusetts Assistant SKYWARN Coordinator

KD1CY-Rob Macedo  ARES SKYWARN Coordinator for NWS Taunton

N1FY-Carl Aveni         NWS Taunton Amateur Radio Operator/Coordinator

KB1CYO-Phil McLaughlin  NWS Taunton Amateur Radio Operator/Coordinator

KB1GHX-Glenn Field      NWS Taunton, Mass. Warning Coordination Meteorologist

William Babcock         NWS Taunton, Mass. SKYWARN Program Leader

The meeting started with a series of presentations that began with

a review of events from November 2005 through March 2006. This

included a video that Jim Palmer-KB1KQW that showed highlights from

these events. The presentation was well received.

In February 2006, Rob Macedo, ARES SKYWARN Coordinator for NWS Taunton

attended the Amateur Radio Hurricane Conference at the National

Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida in his role as the Director of

Operations for the VoIP Hurricane Net. Rob reviewed the conference

in pictures and also got a tour of the Amateur Radio Station at WX4NHC

along with a tour of the Hurricane Center, the Tropical System

Forecast Branch (TAFB) and the NWS Miami Florida Forecast Office which

are collocated with the Hurricane Center. The conference presentation

was well received.

Mike Neilsen-W1MPN, Eastern Massachusetts ARRL Section Manager, gave

a presentation on the Hurricane Katrina Congressional reports. He

discussed how Amateur Radio was one of the few services to be

complimented in the report along with the Air National Guard and

the Coast Guard. Mike explained the breakdowns in the services that

were not viewed favorably and also discussed how well forecasted the

system was by the local NWS Forecast Offices and the National Hurricane

Center.

The next items discussed were the SKYWARN and Marine Spotter classes,

liaison paths and NWS Taunton Operations. These items were discussed

at the November meeting and plans on SKYWARN and Marine Spotter

training was executed as intended.

The next item discussed was the presentation on the Blizzard of 2006

where Mike detailed that as bad as the February Blizzard was,

particularly for Connecticut and the New York City area which

had blockbuster 20"+ snowfall amounts and for other parts of

Southern New England which had 10-20" of snow and wind gusts of

60-70 MPH, Mike described how if the storm had intensified and

stayed near the Southern New England area longer, the storm could've

been much worse for the region. The presentation was well received

by those present.

The next item discussed was Eric Horwitz-KA1NCF and Jim Palmer-KB1KQW

gave an overview of the Netlog software they are utilizing for SKYWARN

Net Control as well as for ARES and Public Service Event net control

duties. They reviewed the features of the programs and things that

are still under development. Copies of Netlog software were

distributed to coordinators for feedback and improvements.

For NWS Taunton topics, the preparedness week schedule was released

and executed for 2006. A NWS Open House was not going to be done

in 2006 and for 2007, no Open House was expected as NWS Taunton

expected to have the P3 Hurricane Hunter Plane in the NWS Taunton

County Warning Area. A Storm Ready update on plans for 2006 was

discussed and updates were provided in the November 2006 meeting

summary.

That concludes the summary for the March 2006 SKYWARN Strategy

Meeting.

Highlights of SKYWARN Coordinator's Meetings from 2005....

Instead of going through a detailed summary for the 2005 meetings,

highlights of these meetings will be gone through at a high level

in this topics starting with the March 2005 meeting and moving

through the October 2005 Meeting.

March 2005 Meeting Highlights:

-Presentation review on past events from the Fall of 2004 to through

March 2005 which included many points on the very rough winter of

2005 including the Blizzard of 2005 and what was presented over

the weekly VoIP Hurricane Prep Net.

-Awards were given to many of the SKYWARN Coordinators, Net Controls

and Alternate Net Controls from the program. The awards were

well received by all who attended.

-Introduction of SKYWARN videos as provided by Jim Palmer-KB1KQW.

-Similar meeting topics to the 2006 Meetings were reviewed.

October 2005 Meeting Highlights:

-Presentation review of the 2005 Severe Weather Season where reporting

increased to over 90% of the reporting received by NWS Taunton from

Amateur Radio.

-New SKYWARN video on severe weather events from 2005 was seen and

enjoyed by all coordinators.

-Mike Neilsen-W1MPN gave a presentation on buoy data during Hurricane

Katrina. This presentation would be given as a poster session at the

2006 Southern New England Weather Conference and was well received

at the conference.

-Decision made to have a presentation on SKYWARN at the Southern

New England Weather Conference by Glenn Field, Warning Coordination

Meteorologist.

This includes highlights from the 2005 SKYWARN Strategy Meetings.

That's all for this edition of the SKYWARN Newsletter!

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)

ARES SKYWARN Coordinator

Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section 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

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