It’s hard to protect yourself and your family from tornados, damaging straight-line severe thunderstorm winds, or large hail, if you don’t know that the National Weather Service has issued a tornado or severe thunderstorm warning for your location.
So, here’s my list of the best ways to get tornado, severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings.
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For 11 years, Alabama broadcast meteorologist James Spann (ABC 33/40, Birmingham) and several of his friends in the weather enterprise have produced a weekly podcast (internet talk show) called WeatherBrains. It was the first in what has become a group of weather-related podcasts that are jointly celebrating the first-annual National Weather Podcast Month in March.
The weather brains normally record WeatherBrains on Monday evenings. Audience members can watch the discussion live on YouTube, watch it later on YouTube or download the program as an audio recording for listening at their convenience.
W9LW’s Ramblings had chance to talk to Spann about the show that started the weather podcast genre and now has an audience in the tens of thousands. Watch the 14-minute interview on YouTube or read it below. The transcript includes a few helpful notes and hyperlinks.
W9LW’s Ramblings: What prompted you to get into the podcast business? Continue reading
The National Weather Service (NWS) plans to change its website, www.weather.gov on March 7. When the change takes place any bookmark you’ve created to a specific forecast will no longer work. You’ll have to go to the home page at the URL above, enter the location for which you want a forecast and create a new bookmark for the page that appears. For more information, see the message below that the NWS sent to all Weather-Ready Nation ambassadors.
Dear Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors,
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:
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.
For more details, please read our Service Change Notice.
The people of Albany, Georgia continue to need volunteer assistance to recover from last week’s tornado outbreak. One of my favorite relief organizations sent today the email message below, which explains why the need for volunteers from outside the area has increased. Please share this information with any congregations or others who might be interested in helping.
IMPORTANT: Please note that if you need lodging, please do not leave your home until you have received a CONFIRMED RESERVATION. Our field team cannot accept anyone who does not have a CONFIRMED RESERVATION.
DEAR OB VOLUNTEERS,
As we move into “Week 2,” we often refer to it as “Phase 2,” because the local volunteer response begins to drop dramatically as businesses reopen, schools reopen and residents return to work. These factors significantly lower our volunteer numbers, which means that we need out-of-town volunteers even more now. We are writing you today to ask you to consider bringing a team to help us help these precious residents over the next 2 – 3 weeks.
VOLUNTEER INFORMATION:
Operation Blessing is accepting volunteers daily at 8:00 AM (Monday – Saturday) at New Birth Fellowship Church in Albany, GA. We have two orientation times each day. Orientation begins at 8:30 AM and 1:00 PM. Operation Blessing will provide everything you need – work assignments, tools, and lunch. All we ask is that you provide your own transportation to and from the work sites. No reservations are needed for daily volunteers.
New Birth Fellowship Church
2106 Radium Springs Road
Albany, GA
Onsite Volunteer Line: 757.374.0944
Volunteer Housing NOW OPEN (CONFIRMED Reservation is Required): Operation Blessing provides FREE volunteer housing in Albany. Operation Blessing will provide your lodging, meals, tools and work assignments, free of charge. All we ask volunteers to provide is their own transportation to and from the worksite each day. Volunteers must be 18 years old or older and serve in teams of at least 2 people. To get more information and to register for volunteer housing, please contact our National Volunteer Manager, Trudy Rauch, at 757.226.3407 or send your name, phone number, date you would like to come and number of volunteers in your team to volunteer@ob.org. We will call you back within 24-48 hours. We require that all volunteers needing overnight housing register 24-48 hours in advance. Please make sure you receive your email confirmation before heading to Albany because our field teams will not be able to accept anyone who does not have a CONFIRMED RESERVATION.
Volunteer Opportunities: Volunteers are needed to help residents sort their belongings to keep what is salvageable, help with debris removal (a lot of wheelbarrow work), chainsaw crews, serving and preparing meals in our mobile kitchen and installing tarps on damaged roofs.
Please feel free to call me with any questions you have and to register your team for overnight volunteer housing.
Sincerely,
Trudy
Trudy Rauch
National Volunteer & U.S. Programs Manager
U.S. Disaster Relief
Operation Blessing International
977 Centerville Turnpike | Virginia Beach, VA 23463
office: (757) 226-3407|
fax: (757) 277-0231 | web: www.ob.org
Operation Blessing International
977 centerville turnpike | virginia beach, va 23463
office: (757) 226-3407| fax: (757) 277-0231 | web: www.ob.org
The amateur radio SKYWARN net based in Fort Wayne will undergo slight changes, effective Feb 1, 2017. Formerly known as the IMO SKYWARN Quadrant Two Net, it will now be referred to as the Allen County SKYWARN Net. The net will continue, however, to accept and relay reports from spotters outside Allen County, including stations in places like DeKalb and Defiance County, which were not officially part of the former quadrant net’s responsibility. Continue reading