Beyond Katrina

Call up all US GUlf Coast Amateur Radio Stations

The VoIP Hurricane Net will be doing the following for net activation plans based on the 5 PM EDT/2100 UTC Sunday track of Major Hurricane Gustav:

1.) Call-Up Net of all Northern US Gulf Coast Stations that are available to assist the net at 8 PM ET/7 PM CT.

2.) Informal net monitoring from the time the call-up is over until 4 AM ET Monday.

3.) Net Activation to start formally at 4 AM ET Monday. The net activation will last until some point on Tuesday depending on the track and intensity of Gustav.

For the latest advisory information including watches and warnings, you can go to the VoIPWXNet web site and click Atlantic Tropical Products and click on the advisory information for Fay under the Atlantic Tropical Products section. You can also gather the advisory information from the National Hurricane Center web site at the following link:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

The reporting criteria and activation policy for our net during hurricane net activations can be found on our web site at http://www.voipwx.net

Listen Only IRLP/EchoLink capability include the following systems (Please note due to rapid activation status some listen-only nodes may not be up right at noon time):

IRLP:
Reflector 9508 Sydney Australia Reflector channel 8.
Reflector 9129 New England Reflector channel 9.

EchoLink:
*KC4QLP-C* Node: 290251
*VKEMCOMM* Node: 270177
*N5API* Node: 77433
*IRESC* Node: 278173
*N1TAI* Node: 269929

A streaming audio feed has been setup thanks to the assistance of David McAnally-WD5M. This is the first time he has setup a streaming audio server so please bear with any technical difficulties. The links are listed below:

http://wx5fwd.net:8000/voipwx.mp3
http://wx5fwd.net:8000/voipwx.ogg
http://live.wx5fwd.net/voipwx.mp3

Bob Carter-KC4QLP has also setup an online stream for up to 32 listeners at the following link:

http://kc4qlp.dyndns.org:8082

An EQSO listen-only feed is also available via KC4QLP-R.

Links to the WD5M streaming audio feeds have also been provided in the Main Menu of the VoIPWXNet web site.

WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center in Miami Florida, will be active beginning Monday Morning. Below is the typical information WX4NHC issues prior to activation of the WX4NHC Ham Station as provided by WX4NHC Coordinators, Julio Ripoll-WD4R and John McHugh-K4AG:

We request all land based stations as well as ships at sea in the areas affected to send us weather data (measured or estimated) and damage reports.

If you are in the affected area and normally monitor on a local Net on VHF, 40 or 80 meters, we would appreciate your checking into the HWN NET or EchoLink/IRLP Net once per Hour to receive the latest Hurricane Advisories and to report your local conditions.

Please do not venture outside during the hurricane to gather weather data.

Your safety is the first priority.

There are many constantly changing atmospheric variables that affect the storm's track and strength.

Please refer to the National Hurricane Center Advisories for official information. www.nhc.noaa.gov

WX4NHC will be monitoring the Hurricane Watch Net www.hwn.org on 14.325 MHz.

Secondary HF frequencies will be 7.268 MHz and 3.950 MHz +/- QRM, should we loose propagation on 20 meters.

EchoLink "WX-Talk" Conference Room and IRLP node 9219 will also be monitored. www.voipwx.net

WX4NHC will also monitor CWOP, APRS and MADIS/MESONET Automated weather stations in the affected area.

Surface Reports using our On-line Hurricane Report form will be monitored.

Amateur Weather Enthusiasts and ON-NHC Volunteers may report directly to WX4NHC on-line.

http://www.wx4nhc.org/WX-form1.html

ON-NHC Volunteers are both Ham Radio Operators and Non-Ham weather observers that use their own weather instruments to submit "Surface Reports" directly to NHC over the Internet via the WX4NHC on-line report form. These "Surface Reports" are very important as they give Hurricane Specialists at NHC a better idea of what is actually happening on the ground level during the storm.

The WX4NHC Group continues to expand its efforts to increase the quantity and quality of surface reports to include many different modes of reception and groups of people; including HF, VHF/UHF IRLP &
EchoLink, VHF & HF APRS, CWOP NOAA Program and ON-NHC Weather Observers Network.

(see our web site for more information on these programs): www.wx4nhc.org

WX4NHC is very proud to have maintained an active Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center for the past 28 years.

We appreciate all of the volunteers who help with our efforts.

OUR MISSION: TO HELP SAVE LIVES.

--

John Mc Hugh, K4AG
Coordinator for Amateur Radio
National Hurricane Center, WX4NHC
Home page:- http://www.wx4nhc.org

Thanks to all for their continued support for the VoIP Hurricane Net!

73,Rob-KD1CY.
Director of Operations for the VoIP Hurricane Net

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LA. BLOGGER NEEDS HELP POSTING - GUSTAV

I NEED HELP POSTING INFO ABOUT HURRICANE GUSTAV AT BEYOND KATRINA, www.hurricane-katrina.org. IF YOU CAN HELP OUT SEND EMAIL to MARGARET SAIZAN,  beyondkatrina@gmail.com

Satellite Images: Gustav & Hanna, August 29, 2008

The center of Gustav has cleared Jamaica and is now over warm open water. August 29, 2008  10:55:33(Courtesy NOAA)lLatitude: 17:45:31N Longitude: 77:34:55W.

Both tropical storms (Gustav left, Hanna R) are forecast to strengthen into hurricanes in the next few days. GOES-12 1 km visible imagery. August 29, 2008  11:03:20 (courtesy NOAA)

Atlantic Basin Satellite Images - 5 Systems to Watch

Whew! 5 spinning vortexes out in the Atlantic basin tonight - The Campaneche Bay system is over the yucatan peninsula, Gustav is in the center and a new disturbance to the right. Tropical Storm Hanna is above center right off Florida's east coast. A new wave just emerged off the coast of Cape Verde, Africa but isn't depicted here. Satellite image courtesy of NOAA.

Gustav is nearing hurricane strength - Visualization date: August 28, 2008  13:05:09, courtesy NOAA.

Hanna, the 8th Tropical Storm of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Visualization date: 8/28/08 13:12:20

...RECONNAISSANCE PLANE APPROACHING GUSTAV...STILL MOVING WEST-SOUTHWEST...

AT 2 AM EDT...0600 UTC..

Updates coming as they are available...

Satellite Image: Gustav Emerging from Haiti

I

Satellite Image: Busy Day for the Tropics

Regional view shows an active day in the Atlantic and the U.S. east coast.
GOES-12 1 km visible imagery. August 27, 2008  10:17:02

Early Am Update on Gustav

I woke up early this am to check on the latest for Gustav - I wasn't too happy to see the spaghetti models pointing the system toward the Gulf of Mexico, and I particularly don't like the NHC's latest track forecast which has Gustav aiming straight for Louisiana.  Indeed this is all very tentative at this point but still...In the the 5:00 am discussion this morning forecasters Erick Blake and Lixion Avila state the upper level winds favor Gustav emerging as a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Gustav is currently stalled over Haiti.

View of Tropical Storm Edouard from Expedition 17 Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff on the International Space Station.  Credit: NASA

Sea Surface Temperature and Hurricane Bertha: NASA Earth Observatory

On land, the passage of a severe storm might be marked by fallen trees or swollen streams. In the ocean, a hurricane leaves a swath of cold water in its path. That trail of cold water marks the passage of Hurricane Bertha through the North Atlantic Ocean in this sea surface temperature image, taken by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on July 7, 2008. Water that is warm enough to fuel a hurricane—about 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit)—is yellow and orange, while cooler water is blue and white.

The warm water is pooled in three distinct regions. The largest of these regions extends east from Florida, Cuba, and Hispaniola. The Gulf Stream current is distinctly visible flowing north along the East Coast of the United States. The third region of warm water is isolated in the center of the image, separated from the rest of the warm water by the cool water left in Bertha’s wake.

This path of cold water was created by Bertha’s powerful winds. The wind churned the ocean, pushing sun-warmed surface water down and driving cool water from beneath to the surface. The swath of cold water follows the storm’s path north. Between July 3 and July 20, Bertha slowly tracked from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, where it formed, across the Atlantic, gradually building and waning in strength. The storm curved north, skimmed past Bermuda, leaving the wake of cold water seen here, and then turned northeast until it broke apart over the chilly waters of the North Atlantic. Throughout its long lifetime, Bertha briefly reached Category 3 status, with winds approaching 195 kilometers per hour (120 miles per hour or 105 knots).

NASA image by Jesse Allen, using AMSR-E data processed and provided by Chelle Gentemann and Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems.  Storm track data provided by Unisys.  Caption by Holli Riebeek.

See also: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/