2011 Hurricane Season videos

The Hurricane  season ended very recently, we need to not forget it's impact and reading about weather history, I found that yes our area can be hit almost directly by a big storm.  This week I read about about authorities in NYC discussing the possibility to be hit by a large hurricane, this may occur every 100 years.  If this does happen, NYC will be flooded.

Please watch this time-lapse video of the 2011 Hurricane season .
This will let you see the storm activity of 19 storms which 3 became major Hurricanes.


Let us not forget what Hurricane Irene and Tropical storm Lee did to our area, hopefully we will be better prepared next year.

I found a lot of videos from PA regarding Hurricane Irene, some of these were in areas close to were my family used to live.

Here is one video from Cheltenham PA.

Stormchasers Tornado Handbook!

I wanted to share this great tornado simulator that is provided by STORMCHASERS at discovery.com

If you are curious as to how tornadoes are formed then you must click this link below for the Tornado Handbook.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/storm-chasers/handbook/handbook.html#mkcpgn=fbdsc22

 There are three tabs in the lower portion of the window, be sure to click on each one.

Enjoy !

Skywarn

There is a volunteer group of storm spotters, trained to document specific information that is vital for Meteorologists to study evolving weather events. These weather events may show signs that they could become a severe storm or maybe even a Tornado.  These storms need to be identified and documented by trained weather spotters, this way multiple sources of information are sent to the local NWS office.   These storm reports are called in to the National Weather service, where Meteorologists combines these reports with doppler radar data.

Skywarn started in the 70's as a national volunteer program, that has helped the NWS to provide more accurate and early storm warnings to the general public.

The author, (Me) has completed the basic course and will work to provide reports to the NWS office in Mt. Holly, New Jersey.  I will be documenting flooding, storms, storm damage and snowfall amounts.

NPP Status Update

Before I wrote about the mission launch on Oct. 28th, soon after the satellite reached it's final orbit.  After review, the satellite passed it initial stages and soon it's instruments were operational.

Earlier Nasa reported that the NPP Satellite had captured it's first hi resolution image on Nov. 21st.
This image was taken by one of the five instruments on board.

Image credit - NASA - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/viirs-firstlight.html

 

The one instrument called VIIRS, (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite), which can detect fog at night just by reflected moonlight.  There is word that this may be able to further enhance early warning for fog alerts.  The imaging system will measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion, fires and Earth's albedo.  Albedo is the fraction of sunlight reflected by the moon, or also known as moonlight. The NPP satellite is a big step from the satellites used back in the early eighties.

The Schuylkill River at Norristown PA

The National Weather Service issued a Flood Warning last night and indicated that the  Schuylkill River reached flood stage as of 5:30 AM this morning. 

This chart shows that at 10:30 AM, the river reached one foot over flood stage and at 11 AM it had started to rain again as I write this.  At this point it is considered minor flooding, still please use caution when driving today.

Attached here is the link with the Flood Stage chart and a Map.

http://water.weather.gov/