KC8DNE.com

The following by Rick Cousins appeared in the Galveston Daily News.

One elderly lady endured Hurricane Ike’s wrath. She was sitting in her modest home located near the San Luis hotel ­ alone in the dark. Her husband was hundreds of miles away in Utah, worried and unable to reach her as landline and cell phone links went offline one by one. Ike ruthlessly destroyed telephone lines and damaged numerous cell towers, and left many others without operating power. The result: a nearly complete communications blackout rarely experienced by 21st century America.

Who could she call? It turned about that her neighbors, Kevin and Sharon Briscoe, solved her problem in just three minutes. Thanks to their “secret identities” as amateur radio operators with the call signs KE5CDE and KE5CFF, respectively.

Despite Hurricane Ike javelining with a tree through their porch roof, 7 inches of water in their garage, and a complete lack of power, gas or phones, the Briscoes were ready and eager to help.

(Read more)

As Hurricane Kyle brushed its way across Eastern New England region on its way to the Canadian Maritimes, hams in the area were prepared for impact. Heavy rain associated with a stalled out boundary, as well as some influence from Kyle, caused heavy rainfall and flooding in the region.

  "We were lucky to have a 12-18 hour lull in rainfall between the rain on Friday and what came on Saturday," said Director of Operations for the VoIP Hurricane Net and SKYWARN Coordinator Rob Macedo, KD1CY. "We were also lucky that most of the direct influence from Kyle remained offshore, or this situation would’ve been much worse." Over the 3 day period, 3 to 6 inches of rain fell over much of Eastern New England, Connecticut and parts of Central Massachusetts and Eastern New Hampshire. Some areas, Macedo said, received more than 8 inches, resulting in pockets of flooding with a few brooks going out of their banks.

(Read more)

The National Weather Service Office in White Lake, MI recently made this announcement.

A live CoCoRaHS Training session has been scheduled for Tuesday August 26, 2008. The session will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the National Weather Service Office in White Lake. The session will include a brief tour of our forecast office and a weather balloon release (weather permitting).

Space is limited. Please contact Heather Orow by email (preferred) at Heather.Orow@noaa.gov, or by phone at 248-625-3309 to reserve your seat. Please include your name, email address, station number, and whether or not a helper will be attending with you (not required). Reservations will be limited to those who have already joined the CoCoRaHS network, whether they are submitting observations yet or not.

For more information on the CoCoRaHS program, or to become an observer, please go to: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/?n=coco

SOURCE: NWS (Detroit/Pontiac, MI)

Here is the official report on the current severe weather season from the NWS Spotter Newsletter.

The 2008 severe weather season is off to a bad start across the United States with a high number of fatalities due to tornadoes. Preliminary data through the end of July indicates that 120 people have been killed by tornadoes across the country. This number is significantly higher than the three year running average of 67 deaths per year. The high number of tornado-related fatalities during 2008 makes this the 9^th deadliest January-July period since reliable records began in 1953. Many of these fatalities were attributed to a tornado outbreak that occurred early in the year on February 5^th and 6^th, nick-named the “Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak”.

(Read more)

If you have been unclear about the National Weather Service’s new Warning by Polygon system, then this should be informative.

Now that the severe weather season is underway, we have gotten a chance to utilize our new Warning By Polygon system that was implemented nationwide on October 1^st 2007. This marks a major change in how the National Weather Service warns the public of impending threats by transitioning from traditional county-based warnings to now issuing warnings based on individual storms or lines of storms. Instead of a warning being in effect for an entire county where many locations may not in fact be threatened, the warning will now strictly be in effect for the areas that will be impacted.

(Read more)

This is a pretty good source of severe weather spotting and chasing information, including an explanation of the difference between the two activities,

This list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) has been compiled on a volunteer basis from questions asked of the authors and their colleagues, as well as basic research information and countless scientific resources. More material will be added, time permitting. All the links here are intended to direct you to more detailed info on the topic linked — often from other educational FAQs such as those at SPC and NSSL.

SOURCE: Stormtrack.org

Here is a new volunteer program from the National Weather Service.

Become a Michigan CoCoRaHS Observer!

What is CoCoRaHS?

On July 1st, Michigan became the 34th state to participate in the national Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS. CoCoRaHS is a dense network of volunteers who measure and report precipitation. The network is made up weather enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds who send in daily observations from their homes, schools, and businesses.

The network originated with the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University in 1998, a year after a major flood occurred in Fort Collins.  In the years since, CoCoRaHS has expanded rapidly with over 9,000+ observers in more than thirty states. (Read more)

Record Report Statement as of 1:26 AM EDT on July 03, 2008

A record rainfall of 1.26 inch(es) was set at Flint Michigan yesterday. This breaks the old record of 0.62 set in 1985.

SOURCE: NWS

Lightning is the biggest risk to severe weather spotters.

Summer is the peak season for one of the nation’s deadliest weather phenomena, lightning. But don’t be fooled, lightning strikes year round. The goal of this Website is to safeguard U.S. residents from lightning.

In the United States, an average of 62 people are killed each year by lightning. Already in 2008, 8 people have died due to lightning strikes. In 2007, 45 people were struck and killed by lighting in the U.S.; hundreds of others were injured.  Of the victims who were killed by lightning:

• 98% were outside
• 89% were male
• 30% were males between the ages of 20-25
• 25% were standing under a tree
• 25% occurred on or near the water

The reported number of injuries is likely far lower than the actual total number because many people do not seek help or doctors do not record it as a lightning injury.  People struck by lightning suffer from a variety of long-term, debilitating symptoms, including memory loss, attention deficits, sleep disorders, numbness, dizziness, stiffness in joints, irritability, fatigue, weakness, muscle spasms, depression, and an inability to sit for long. (Read more)

SOURCE: NWS

National Weather Service meteorologists assessed that areas of enhanced damage caused by the line of intense thunderstorms on Sunday were a result strong thunderstorm winds, not tornadoes. Winds associated with surges in the gust front, as high as 80 mph,contributed to swaths of enhanced wind damage across many locations in Southeast Michigan, especially in Shiawassee, Livingston, Genesee, Oakland, Lapeer and Macomb counties. The widespread nature of the damage is characteristic of a well organized, long-lived, fast moving thunderstorm complex known as a derecho.

SOURCE: NWS, Public Information Statement