What if Weather Satellites Stopped working?

I could not help to share this interview with you, my readers.  I have brought up this topic before when the GOES 13 satellite malfunction several months ago.


Please watch this video courtesy of the Huffington Post and the interview with several experts in both weather and satellite technology.

2012 - Weather blog in review

The_Weather_Vane in 2012 - a year of blogging..

I am happy to say that I witnessed many events this year which helped push me to document and learn more about weather events.  Last year I took two courses at the Mt. Holly National Weather Service so that I can be a volunteer Storm Spotter.   With this I report key information that Meteorologists use to help produce "ground truth" so that they can compare data with other advanced weather tools and information.  This year I learned about Tsunamis, Space Weather events and read and wondered how much more I should do to learn about Meteorology and being a Writer.
After thinking of new ways for me and this blog to evolve I have stepped things up to a new level.  I have enrolled with an online Meteorology program with Penn State.  I am anxious to learn even more as I exercise my mind in writing here and learning from experts.
If you are new to the blog I am here to help. Here is a summary of events with links to each story that I posted throughout this year.

TWV first anniversary  Sept
I reported storms as a Storm Spotter and made many updates to the blog.
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/09/theweathervanes-anniversary.html

Storm Chaser Andy Gabrielson killed by drunk driver  Feb
Tragic accident for a dedicated professional storm chaser
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/02/andy-gabrielson-pro-storm-chaser.html

Tornado Warning June
Horsham was mentioned on the Weather Channel Live
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/06/tornado-warning-in-se-pa-612012.html

What is a Tsunami  My father's story  Jan
My father witnessed two tsunami's
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-tsunami.html

First Dual Pole Image (NJ/PA NWS)  Jan
Dual Pole Radar upgrade test
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-dual-pole-image.html

Lightning in Horsham  May
One of a few lighting photos I took from my balcony
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/05/lightning-in-horsham-part-ii.html

Extreme Weather - Dallas TX Hail Storm  June
Video of a terrible hail storm in Dallas with a hail stone size list.
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/06/extreme-weather-dallas-tx-hail-storm.html

Hurricane Sandy became Superstorm Sandy
I have to talk about all my posts about this storm.  Many news outlets and weather watchers complained about the over use of hype and scare tactics reporting about this storm that was coming up the East Coast.  I for one am happy that I spoke up about this storm. I was talking about Sandy online and posted here on the bog days before it hit our area.  Did my warnings help you?

Being Ready for Hurricane Sandy (my first talk about this storm) Oct 26th
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/10/being-ready-for-hurricane-sandy.html

Hurricane Sandy - Before the storm (I was bringing news updates during the storm)
Oct 28th
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-before-storm.html

Hurricane Sandy reaches PA  (photos after the storm)  Oct 29th
I took many pictures of storm damage around Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties in PA
Get your "The_Weather_Vane"  App for your smartphone
http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-reaches-pa.html

Finally, here is a video from one of my favorite online Weather Sources Wunderground.com

Near Earth Asteroid

What is considered too close for comfort?

An asteroid measuring roughly 3 miles across passed near the Earth last week at a distance of about 4.3 million miles away.  So what is considered too close for comfort?  To give an idea of the scale of this asteroid at its closest distance to the Earth, Toutartis 4179 passed at 4.3 million miles away.  Our own moon is just 238,900 miles from us and Mars varies in distance because of the Earth and Mars have unrelated orbits around the Sun.  Mars at is closest distance is 34 million miles and at the farthest could be 250 million miles out.  Scientists state that even though Asteroid (Toutatis 4179) passed safely away from the Earth that it will return in the year 2069 and that time it will pass even closer to the Earth at 1.8 million miles.  To give an idea how much damage this asteroid could do if it collided with the Earth,  scientists state that the asteroid that would have killed off the dinosaurs would have been 6 miles across so if in one of its future runs it could cause catastrophic damage.
I for one would wish that NASA would have in place an early warning system for large objects like this so that we could have enough time to do something to protect the Earth.

Below is a video from multiple space radar images.

 

Article sources are from NASA and space.com

Superstorm Sandy

 This time Last year we had just a light snow storm but this year that was definitely not the case.

     Sandy was a tropical storm that had Meteorologists scrambling to make a difficult and challenging prediction of it's path.  Thankfully the weather experts used the best tools they had between the eye in the sky satellites, Dual Pole Radar, Hurricane hunter missions and several conflicting computer models.    Even though the Mid Atlantic and Northeast were hit pretty hard we still should thank NOAA , NASA, The National Weather Service and The National Hurricane Center for keeping us very informed that this giant hybrid storm that was aimed at us, All their hard work paid off giving us many days of advanced warning. We need to look back and see if we ever have a storm like this come at us again to see what else we could have done to be better prepared.

 
     Back in August of 2011 I walked around and took pictures of the damage that Tropical Storm Irene inflicted nearby.  I wrote about it's 10 feet high flood waters around Penny Pack Park and the flood in Hatboro near the creek.    Just after my witnessing the damage from that storm I became a Trained Storm Spotter and I am glad I did that.  Along with writing for this blog, I have learned about storms and how to be prepared and I am finding ways to keep people in my community informed.
 So this time I took this storm (Sandy) very seriously, I read about it's potential storm track and I gradually bought supplies such as canned food, bottled water and lots of batteries. I soon learned that this was a wise choice as I lost power for three days and then left home because of the lack of heat and hot water.

   Social media played an important role in passing information about this storm quickly.  The pic below was take on the evening of October 29th.   I had already lost power for several hours and my cellphone batter was running low on reserve power.  I took several pics like this through the storm and posted them online to chronicle the time, temperature, humidity and more dramatically the very low barometric pressure.  As the pic shows the pressure was only 949 mb which I believe was lower than what I saw with T.S Irene.   I posted my Now cast information as long as I could until my phone battery quit.  Later that evening I heard a loud crack and it turned out to be a limb from a tree that fell on top of the a car.

No Power, no heat on 10/29/12

After the Storm

   The next day my brother Dan who is a photographer and a fellow Storm Spotter basically called me and said lets drive around and see if we could get some pictures of damage so we did that and went on a quick ride.

Here are a few pictures I took during our leisurely cruise through Montgomery county.

Dresher PA 10/30/12  Photo by P Saavedra

Route 152 - Dresher PA by P. Saavedra

Dreshertown Plaza by P. Saavedra

Upper Dublin, PA - P. Saavedra

Germantown Section of Philly - P.. Saavedra

Whitemarsh, PA - P. Saavedra

Whitemarsh PA - P. Saavedra

Senton Ave & Butler Pk,  P. Saavedra

Whitemarsh PA  by P. Saavedra

Whitemarsh Country Club - P. Saavedra

smoke and fire in Wyncote, PA - P. Saavedra

After experiencing what is the strongest storm that has hit this area in many years, I am glad to say that I do not know of any injuries that has occurred   I have to say that the last picture shows a branch that fell right when I was taking that shot and it started a small fire.  I am just glad that I was not too close.

Finally I wanted to share a new tool for communicating Weather awareness.  The next evolutionary step I had to take was for mobile technology.  I wanted to give my readers a gift in the form of a free mobile app.   You can download the app for Android.

Powered by Conduit Mobile

Hurricane Sandy reaches PA

Here is an update

Hurricane Sandy has arrived in PA, winds have picked up in Philly to around 47 MPH.
Reports of trees falling over onto a home in Hatfield and in Norristown PA,  that occurred earlier today and  Philadelphia Schools are closed again tomorrow.

At this point you should not go outside at all, road conditions will deteriorate through the evening and
I do not expect to have continous electrical power throught the afternoon to evening.
Sandy is expected to hit our area after 6-8 PM tonight and winds will get stronger, so
please keep listening to the news as the wind is not just the only dangerous factor of this storm.  If live near a creek or a low area, leaves are blocking storm drains and you may find yourself in a flash flood.

 This map shows the latest information of the storms track

 

Animated satellite image of Hurricane Sandy in the Atlantic. 

NASA

If you want information about the storm sent to you by text message, they visit this local website to subscribe; http://readynotifypa.org/

If you want to get updates from the National Weather service and check Radar and forecast information, click here; http://climatedriver.blogspot.com/p/local-radar-news.html