Weather Satellite Malfunction

You cannot help but to be concerned when a weather satellite malfunctions during Hurricane season.

As mentioned before the NOAA's GOES 13 Weather Satellite was not able to transmit its data and GOES 14 which is another satellite started to be used as a backup to help meteorologists to examine the entire eastern part of the U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean for potential storms.

On October 1st NOAA reported that they had the two satellites switch positions in orbit so that the GOES 14 has same viewable position that the GOES 13 had when it was working properly.

Here is a video showing the two satellites that were moved in orbit

Story source and video credit NOAA

One Weather Satellite Less

GOES 13 NOAA's Geostationary Operations Environmental Satellite 


An important weather satellite that helps us to watch the US east coast was down recently.  With swift action the GOES  14 satellite took the place of the much needed GOES 13

Here is a great animated image of GOES 13 in action last year that followed Hurricane Irene.

Current status information for GOES 13 

http://www.oso.noaa.gov/goesstatus/spacecraftStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=13

Here is some background information on  GOES13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES_13

A Weather Ready Nation, the next Steps

WRN

Back in December I wrote about a large national project called a "Weather Ready Nation".
This is a project where several organizations have joined forces to inform public to being prepared for weather emergencies due to storms.  Before this project the information we received was really only to alert of weather events and emergencies, however educating the public was difficult because there were too many fragmented national organizations that were trying to communicate public safety  awareness.  Internet technology had to be utilized effectively and messages from the scattered organizations were not being made mainstream into public media enough.   Newspapers, Television networks and other media sources unfortunately depend on what readers and watchers want to see and they are controlled by its paid advertising campaigns.  Public safety messages rarely are noticed because we have to admit some of the messages have been a bit boring or thought to be unnecessary because some areas of the country only see a strong storm every 50 years.   Being a storm spotter I listen to co-workers and friends and they state the same thing.  Meteorologists like to scare the public to think that a storm is coming and then it does not happen.  2011 was a busy year for weather events, records were broken in snowfall, temperature extremes and drought.  These changes to our landscape has cost our county billions of dollars.

NOAA, The National Weather Service and several other national organizations started this project to help the public to be prepared and to do so they will need to use the internet and smartphone technology which has become very popular and a logical choice to communicate quickly and to many people at a time.  Other communication tools are considered because if there is a power failure, some methods of communication would not be reliable.  The video at the bottom mentions the need to improve forecasts, alerts and the need to improve the way we are educated by using new media.

The Next Steps

  Communication was only one part of the advances made by this project, here is a list of new or upgraded tools to keep our nation informed and to be prepared.

• Suomi NPP Satellite - A relatively new advanced satellite to measure weather readings and study our climate - more here : NPP overview

• NOAA's Dual Pole Weather Radar upgrades - Here is my write up; Fort Dix upgrade - what is dual Pole video

• Updating communication via Cell Phones, Google Maps and Social Media -  My first report about WRN

• Testing the system via Pilot Project in different cities -Six locations one of them in Silver Spring MD,   to bring life saving information to make a life saving decision. from the source

Being prepared does not mean that you have to rely on others to make a decision, you can find the way to learn how to be prepared.  "Be a Force of Nature" is the slogan from NOAA's National Weather service.   This blog has made the commitment to being prepared and to pass this message along as well. You can find information here but even better go to the source; www.ready.gov

Here is a video from The National Weather Service about WRN and the National Dialog event they had last December. 

Original source- WRN Advancing toward a Weather-Ready Nation

Fire Tornado

Witness a rare phenomenon where a brush fire meets a twister in Australia

You must see this video

The_Weather_Vane's Anniversary

September 15th I wrote and posted the 1st story...

The very first blog post I wrote last year was about myself and why I started this blog. I did not want to repeat what was already written however I want to write about my experience while working on this blog throughout the year.

To start the blog I had to think about what to write and to keep a regular theme which has changed a little bit over time. I started to report local weather observations here but I quickly noticed that the blog was not read by just local readers.  A simple weather report was not enough to inform and to entertain weather fans.  I left the forecast posts for my social media sites and then only reported storm events and had the idea to try to travel around the area to report storms and take pictures. Tropical Storm Irene really had an important impact for me, I started to realize that a blog like this should not be just about weather reporting but should also involve communicating the need to be prepared for severe weather, other natural and man made disasters.   Along with doing research for storm events around the world, and weather science stories, I have met many online contacts and groups through social media.  I started to be  much more active online and found more ideas for stories, great sources of information by many weather experts, scientists and journalists. I have posted a few stories in the local Patch newspaper  and the blog is linked to the Time Herald paper.  I have been more active on Twitter as @enso1998 and post daily on The_Weather_Vane Media page on Facebook.  I had also connected with educational organizations, FEMA, The National Weather Service and with a local traffic blog writer @PaDriverWatch, where we exchange updates via twitter and on each others blog home pages with the idea that weather and traffic safety should be reported to the public especially now that most people carry smartphones and have the ability to access this information quickly.

Weather topics is what this blog is mainly about, but public safety, emergency communication, and space weather technology are now new topics.  As the year progresses into the Winter season, I will take more pictures to report how our area looks like again with a fresh coating of snow and ice as I have been doing from the start.  I also have been making progress becoming a better writer, reporter and photographer.

For 2013 I want the blog to have a more interactive experience, I want to conduct polls and  ask questions to get readers more involved. The internet is a powerful tool and we should not take this for granted. 

   And finally I want to thank all my readers and followers, I hope the blog helps you to be informed and to be prepared.