It is really time to begin getting ready for the fall tornado season. For all practical purposes, it is upon us. Alabama is one of the only places in the world with two distinct severe weather seasons; our spring season comes in March, April, and May, while the fall season runs through all of November, and the first half of December. As we have pointed out here many times, most of the really serious severe weather events in Alabama have come during the fall season since 1999.
We have worked very hard in the last 12 months to get systems in place to enhance our ground truth. The ABC 33/40 SKYCAM network, and our large team of Skywatchers, should help confirm signatures we see on radar and hopefully reduce the number of false alarms. At this moment we have 10 SKYCAM sites in operation, in Birmingham, Inverness, Tuscaloosa, Gadsden, Mt. Cheaha, Cullman, Jasper, Hamilton, Demopolis, and Gulf Shores. A new SKYCAM site should be coming online in Clanton within the next week or two as we continue to build the network. Over 100 weather spotters are part of our Skywatcher network; they report back to us in real time using instant message technology. This is going to be extremely helpful during severe weather events, not only with real time reports on severe storms, but the damage reports after the storm is gone.
We ask that you review your home tornado safety plan with your family. Know the safe place in the home, and be sure all the kids are aware of it. If you live in a mobile home, you must have a place to go at any hour of the day or night in the event of a tornado warning. And, most importantly, for everyone you must have a good NOAA Weather Radio receiver in your home so you will always get the warnings. Forget outdoor sirens, just go get a NOAA Weather Radio, preferably one with specific area message encoding (SAME) technology so you can choose the counties for which the alarm sounds.
And, of course, when that NOAA Weather Radio alarm sounds, turn on ABC 33/40 and we will be there for you with the latest emergency weather information you need!
We have worked very hard in the last 12 months to get systems in place to enhance our ground truth. The ABC 33/40 SKYCAM network, and our large team of Skywatchers, should help confirm signatures we see on radar and hopefully reduce the number of false alarms. At this moment we have 10 SKYCAM sites in operation, in Birmingham, Inverness, Tuscaloosa, Gadsden, Mt. Cheaha, Cullman, Jasper, Hamilton, Demopolis, and Gulf Shores. A new SKYCAM site should be coming online in Clanton within the next week or two as we continue to build the network. Over 100 weather spotters are part of our Skywatcher network; they report back to us in real time using instant message technology. This is going to be extremely helpful during severe weather events, not only with real time reports on severe storms, but the damage reports after the storm is gone.
We ask that you review your home tornado safety plan with your family. Know the safe place in the home, and be sure all the kids are aware of it. If you live in a mobile home, you must have a place to go at any hour of the day or night in the event of a tornado warning. And, most importantly, for everyone you must have a good NOAA Weather Radio receiver in your home so you will always get the warnings. Forget outdoor sirens, just go get a NOAA Weather Radio, preferably one with specific area message encoding (SAME) technology so you can choose the counties for which the alarm sounds.
And, of course, when that NOAA Weather Radio alarm sounds, turn on ABC 33/40 and we will be there for you with the latest emergency weather information you need!
on October 25, 2006, 9:04 pm
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