Weather_RADIO_LISTENERS_NEWSLETTER_ISSUE_24_October_9th_2017Welcome to the 24th issue of the Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter. In this issue, we have many of the same exciting articles you have come to know over the last few years. Please read on and enjoy.
Hello again and welcome to the third issue for 2017. Since the summer I have been busy, with things which have made it difficult to focus on things. So, this is not only the third issue for 2017 but the final issue for this year.
It is a rather slimmed down issue too, with not much fat on it. I am glad that it didn’t come out in August because it certainly did need some more material, to make it a full complete issue. Also, it is the 6th anniversary of the newsletter and this also makes the lack of an issue in August even more of an event in itself. It has been a challenge to put each issue together, despite how easy it seems (even to myself). However, I love doing it and it gives me fulfillment of doing something to potentially save lives. Weather Radio is a rather strange thing to most people but, to those who know how it works it is a real handy thing to have around your home or with you, on a trip. Smart phone apps are good but a Weather Radio is even more important, when the internet has problems.
As for Facebook, thanks to those of you who have joined the Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter Facebook group, through myself or the other three admins. I will do an article on the Facebook group in this issue and talk about the rather sudden creation of the group in my head, back in February. Also, I hope that more people contribute to it in the next three months and hopefully, some of them can translate to articles in the newsletter it self. I have one conversation so far but that’s it, besides my own posts to the group.
Anyway, I hope you all have enjoyed the summer where ever you are reading this and how ever you are reading this. Let’s all make the best of this time of year, before it turns colder and the white stuff becomes a reality. 🙂
From the Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter Facebook group
Gord and all. Don’t know if anyone caught this news story lately. Haven’t had much time to research it but sounds interesting: https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/23/experimental-forecast-warns-of-tornadoes-hours-ahead/
If this comes to fruition this could be a real plus for saving lives and could change things, as far as the length of watches and warnings for tornadoes. Thanks to Dave Chambers for the link and the contribution. 🙂
THE WATCHDOG REPORT
If you hear anything that doesn’t sound right on your local Weather Radio transmitter, there are various ways to report a problem that depend on where you live. If you live in The United States, you can call 1-888-697-7263. You can email NOAA at nwroutage@noaa.gov, or on the web at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr. If you live in Canada, you can call 1-877-789-7733. You can email the National Weatheradio Canada Team at ec.wxradio.ec@canada.ca. Also, you can report it on the NOAA Weather Radio Weatheradio Canada Facebook page and the Yahoo Weatheradio Chat Group. You will find the link to both the Facebook and the Yahoo group later in this issue and all issues of the newsletter. You can also email the author directly at wxrnewsletter@gmail.com and it will be passed on for you.
Note from the author:
I will only include items with a definitive time stamp on them, from start to finish. That is in affect the whole point of this report, to give as conclusively as possible, dates and times when outages have begun and ended.
On Wednesday May 10th at around 8:13 PM, all of the Ontario network of Weatheradio Canada went into watchdog and came back around midnight. Marc-Antoine Chabot explains what happened!
I really don’t know why this is happening. Our main (very stable but designed for the previous-previous version of windows) software just.. crashed.. I had set myself a reminder to reboot all of our critical systems every 21 days and guess what… That reminder is for tomorrow!
On Sunday, June 4 at 9:45 PM, the entire Ontario network of Weatheradio Canada went into watchdog mode, again. It was restored on Monday, June 5 at 8:05 AM.
On Tuesday, June 6 at around 6:21 PM The entire Weatheradio Canada network in Ontario went back into watchdog mode. It was restored The next morning at 7:43 AM.
On Saturday, June 17, Toronto XMJ225 went into watchdog on its own. This was due to a loss of the Internet connection for a few hours. It officially went into watchdog at 9:36 A.m. and return at one:57 PM, unusually with a SAME alert going off to Signal the restoration. While this was going on there were a number of watches and warnings including severe thunderstorm watch and a heat warning in effect for the listening area at the time, among others issued during the severe weather outbreak.
On Thursday, July 6 at 9:20 A.m. St Catharines VAD320 went into watchdog mode and wasn’t restored until Tuesday, July 11 around noon. This was due to the loss of the Internet at the transmitter site so, when it returned it was switched from FTP to dial-up for the time being. It went back into watchdog mode again on Friday July 14th at around 5:30 PM or so. It was restored for the second time this month on Monday, July 17 at around 10:00 a.m.
On Thursday, July 20 at 9:27 P.m. the entire Ontario network went into watchdog mode and was restored at around 9:54 PM the same day. This was due to a whole bunch of severe thunderstorm watches and warnings in effect throughout parts of Ontario that day.
On Thursday, July 27 the entire Weatheradio Canada network and Ontario went into watchdog mode at 2:36 P.m. It was restored at around 3:13 p.m., the same day.
(On Thursday, September 7 at 11:17AM ADT Weatheradio XLK473 went out of service. NMN was received at that time. It was restored the same day.
🙂
THE CANWARN/SKYWARN REPORT
CANWARN (CANadian Weather Amateur Radio Network) is a volunteer organization of amateur radio operators who report severe weather and damage reports to Environment Canada when they see it. Weather reports from amateur radio operators help confirm on the ground what satellites and radars see in the atmosphere. The information gathered from CANWARN is also used to update and fine tune weather warnings, fill in gaps in current observing networks and is also valuable in forensic storm analysis. When Environment Canada issues severe weather watches or warnings, they may alert the CANWARN volunteer Net Controllers in the affected areas. The volunteer Net Controllers contact other CANWARN members on the amateur radio, tell them a watch or warning has been issued and ask them to report signs of approaching severe weather. In the US SKYWARN is the American counterpart to CANWARN in Canada and the purpose for it is exactly the same.
For this section of the newsletter, we will explore how different CANWARN and SKYWARN groups operate in their local region, from time to time. There may be some SKYWARN information from meteorologists in this issue and there will be some tips on how to report severe weather for both CANWARN and SKYWARN.
We may not agree with everything that is written here, but it is important to hear from others to see how different groups operate throughout North America.
As for SKYWARN training schedules, you can go to either of the following sites:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/skywarn/
http://skywarn.org/
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id#
http://spotterguides.us/
There are many links for you to look at on these sites. 🙂
SPOTTER REPORTING TIPS
How to Report
Amateur radio network (if applicable) – Amateur Radio Condition
Condition Codes: Code Green – Severe Thunderstorm Watch
Code Yellow – Severe Thunderstorm Warning or Tornado Watch
Code Red – Tornado Warning
in Ontario by email at storm.ontario@ec.gc.ca
Twitter with hashtag #onstorm
If you are CANWARN trained you should give the following information to the weather office in order to help them ground truth: Your name, CANWARN ID, contact number, – Where – you are located and the approximate location of what you are reporting, – Describe what you are witnessing/what you witnessed, the time of occurrence of the event and duration, its movement (where the phenomenon came from and where it is going).
In the spring/summer severe weather season, please report the following:
Hail (use coins to describe its size…dime, nickel, quarter, loonie for larger hail…golf ball etc.), Heavy rain that has resulted in local flooding, Damaging winds (damage from tree branches down to more significant tree or structural damage), Large scale rotation in a thunderstorm such as: Wall Cloud – Funnel Cloud, Waterspout and Tornado, Dense fog – visibility less than 1 km
Note: if you are unsure of the rotation or presence of a wall cloud or funnel cloud…watch the area for a few minutes if it is safe to do so to verify the situation.
For the fall/winter, please report the following: Dense fog (visibility less than 1 km), Any occurrence of freezing rain or freezing drizzle, Heavily accumulating snow (2 or more cm/hr), Whiteout conditions in snow/blowing snow (visibility near zero), Rapid freezing of water on road surfaces.
For SKYWARN spotters, you should report: Tornadoes or funnel clouds (be very wary of look-alikes; watch for rotation)
waterspouts, Wall clouds, especially if they are rotating
Hail (Be specific with regard to size; however, YOU SHOULD NOT report MARBLE size)
Winds (40 mph or greater; specify whether they are estimated or recorded), large branches downed (specify the diameter of the branch), Trees/power lines downed, Structural damage to buildings such as roof, windows, etc.
Rainfall (1 inch or greater in an hour) (NOT a 1″/hr. rate for 10 minutes), 2 inches or greater storm total, Flooding — Streams/Rivers — also, when nearing bankful — Coastal — Street (Road Closures/Washouts, Cars Stuck due to flood waters. Minimum of 6″ of water covering an entire roadway or lane of a major route/highway).
For Winter Weather you should report: Precipitation type change (rain to sleet/freezing rain/snow, when the change has “taken hold”), Thunder when it is accompanied by snow, 1/4″ radial ice accretion (from twig outward; not circumference), New Snowfall from the First 2 inches; every 2-3 inches thereafter, 1 inch per hour or greater.
If it is less than 2 inches total, give the final total only Give final total: no partial reports please) Report any snow/sleet/freezing rain if not in NWS forecast.
Please consult your local Amateur Radio club or CANWARN or SKYWARN group for their: email address, Twitter account or Facebook pages.
🙂
Where toPurchase Weather Radios
Weather Radios can be purchased at various electronics stores that specialize in radios and other equipment such as:
CB World at http://www.werecb.com/,
Universal Radio at http://www.universal-radio.com/,
Durham Radio at http://www.durhamradio.com/,
Radio World at http://www.radioworld.ca/,
Burnaby Radio at http://www.burnabyradio.com/,
Ambient Weather at http://www.ambientweather.com/, and many more retailers throughout North America.
Best Buy, which caters more to General consumer Electronics such as, Smart phones, tablets, MP3 players etc. However, they also Carrie some Weather Radios, in both Canada and the US. http://www.bestbuy.com/ also in Canada http://m.bestbuy.ca/defaultpage.aspx?lang=en or the free iOS app Best Buy Canada by Best Buy Canada Ltd
https://appsto.re/ca/_2iex.i
If you want more information about the app, check The developer website for more information. http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/bestbuyapps.aspx
When planning to purchase your first Weather Radio, it is highly recommended to look for the Public Alert identification logo. 🙂
Weather Information on the Internet
Suggested weather sites to visit as follows; In Canada the current websites url is http://www.weather.gc.ca
Want to get your weather in the US? Go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/
Weatheradio Canada webpage at http://www.ec.gc.ca/weatheradio
NOAA Weather Radio webpage at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr.
DX Info Centre at http://www.dxinfocentre.com/, to hear what Weather Radio sounds like before buying your first receiver, visit YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/,
The NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards Newsletter is published four times a year. There is some seasonal information to notify recipients of additional weather information available to them that they may not know about (most of which can be found on the NOAA Watch web site http://www.noaawatch.gov/ ). At this site you can also subscribe to various weather feeds. The rest of the newsletter remains relatively unchanged due to outreach requirements. The current newsletter is available at the Noaa Weather Radio website http://www.weather.gov/nwr/news.htm. At this time, there is no newsletter mailing list to subscribe.
If you have additional questions, please feel free to e-mail answers@noaa.gov, here is the link to the answers website; http://findanswers.noaa.gov/noaa.answers/consumer/search.asp.
Yahoo Weatheradio Chatgroup, at
http://tech.Groups.yahoo.com/group/weatheradio/,
NOAA and Weatheradio Canada group on Facebook,
https://m.facebook.com/groups/weatheradio/
WXtoIMG at http://www.wxtoim.com/downloads/,
Digital Atmosphere at http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/
WebEx
http://www.freewebs.com/ve1jbl/canwarn.htm
NWS Taunton Amateur Radio SKYWARN Station home page at http://www.wx1box.org
The Maritime Amateur (Ham Radio for Maritimers by Maritimers) http://www.maritimeamateur.ca
VoIP Hurricane Prep Net – Saturday 9pm Atlantic Time / http://www.voipwx.net/
Phil Chadwicks blog at philtheforecaster.blogspot.com
🙂
Weather or Weather Radio Apps
This is a newly constructed list and it needs more results for future reference. If you have idea’s for weather or Weather Radio apps which should be put into future issues of the newsletter, send an email to the author at wxrnewsletter@gmail.com. Right now these are iPhone apps only, because that is all we have at the moment. Your help is needed to expand it.
CanWeather2 by High5
https://appsto.re/ca/M0aK6.i
Weather Office Free by X2 Studios
https://appsto.re/ca/–gXw.i
This app provides weather and forecast information for both Canada and the US from Environment Canada and the National Weather Service respectively. In fact nearly all apps mentioned here provide information from one or both sources. There is a version you pay for but to me, it is the same as the free version.
NOAA Weather Radio by Christopher Coudriet
https://appsto.re/ca/R0LCy.i
This app allows you to listen to NOAA Weather Radio and receive alerts for your county in the US. It would be nice if it also provided the same feature for Weatheradio Canada and Canadians too.
The Weather Center by Midland Radio Corporation
https://appsto.re/ca/9De3K.i
This app provides access to Midland Radio via social media and also provides weather forecast information and much more.
Weather Radio by WDT by Weather Decision Technologies, Inc.
https://appsto.re/ca/5eBPy.i
This app gives you NWS alerts and also pushes lightning alerts to your iPhone, when lightning is possibly detected in your local area or, in area’s you have selected.
TuneIn Radio – Stream Live Radio by TuneIn
https://appsto.re/ca/_7t-y.i
This popular app allows you to listen to conventional, Internet and even some Weather Radio stations when and where available. you can even listen to podcasts of your favourite radio shows if you like and maybe even audiobooks, To help you pass the time in the monotony of a commute or while waiting in the waiting room for an appointment.
Météo – Canadian Weather by North Bits Solutions Ltd.
https://appsto.re/ca/vu0i3.i
This is another app designed for Canadians and is available in both english and french. It is similar to the Degrees Pro app and some of the others on this list. It is also free, despite that it offers in app purchases.
Atmosphérique Pro – Canadian Weather from EC by Quadrant Newmedia Corp.
https://appsto.re/ca/ZcvgB.i
Radar Eh – Canada radar & alerts app using Environment Canada radar data by Zhao Han
https://appsto.re/ca/pA09cb.i
WeatherEh – using Environment Canada weather data to show Canada weather forecast & radar by Zhao Han
https://appsto.re/ca/h-cvcb.i
Weather Nets On Ham Radio from Daryl Stout WX1DER
a) VoIP Skywarn Hurricane Prep Net — Meets at 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central, 6pm Mountain, 5pm Pacific Time, on the *WX_TALK* Echolink Conference Server…Echolink Node 7203, and IRLP Node 9219.
During the off-season hurricane months from December through May, the net meets on the FIRST SATURDAY of the month ONLY. During the Atlantic Hurricane Season, from June through November, the net meets WEEKLY, at 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central, 6pm Mountain, and 5pm Pacific Time.
Also, note that on the first Saturday of December, the net is ONE HOUR EARLIER…at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 5pm Mountain, and 5pm Pacific Time. This is so at the conclusion of Skywarn Recognition Day, stations don’t have to wait for the net to occur.
Further details are at http://www.voipwx.net
b) Southeast US D-Star Weather Net — Meets at 9pm Eastern, 8pm Central, 7pm Mountain, and 6pm Pacific, every Sunday night, on Reflector 2, Port A. The net also meets on the Southeast US D-Star Weather Net Ratflector on D-Rats.
Further details are at http://www.dstarinfo.com/se-d-star-wx-net.aspx
Lastly, stations can get a list of selected D-Star Nets during the week by sending an email to me at wx1der@gmail.com — and again, a list of selected Echolink Nets is at http://www.wx1der.com/elk.htm
Daryl Stout, WX1DER, Net Control
VoIP Skywarn Hurricane Prep Net
Southeast US D-Star Weather Net
Certified Skywarn Severe Storrrm Spotter
The official Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter Twitter Account
https://mobile.twitter.com/wxrnewsletter
There are many reliable manufacturers and retailers of Weather Radios sold in Canada and the USA. Below is a list of the recommended models currently for sale. Note: This list of suggested weather radios is strictly for informational purposes, and not as an endorsement of any specific model or manufacturer.
Midland Radio Corporation http://www.Midlandradio.com WR-300, W-r100B, EH55VP, WR-120, HH54VP, HH54VP2, ER102, Er300, ER310, EH55VP, Nautico 3, WR-11 and WR-400 are all manufactured by Midland and sold in North America.
Oregon Scientific http://www2oregonscientific.com W-R601, W-R203 and W-R602 are currently sold in North America.
Uniden Corporation http://www.Uniden.com BC75XLT, BC95XLT, BC125AT, BC346XT, BCT15X, BCD996XT, Homepatrol, BC436HP, BC536HP and BCD396XT are currently sold in North America.
Sangean USA http://www.Sangean.com CL100, DT400,, DT500, MMR88, PR-D4W and PRD9W are manufactured by Sangean and currently sold in North America.
Reecom Electronics Inc
http://www.reecominc.com R-1630, R-1650, R-200 and R-500 are manufactured by Reecom and currently sold in North America.
Kaito Electronics Inc http://www.kaitousa.com/. KA500, KA101 and KA600 are currently sold in North America.
Alert Works http://www.alert-works.com/ Alert Works desktop model EAR-10 is currently sold in North America.
🙂
In Closing
If you have any comments or suggestions, or if you wish to submit an article, please email the author Gord at wxrnewsletter@gmail.com
blindgordie@gmail.com
or va3wxa@gmail.com. We also encourage you to visit http://www.qrz.com/db/va3wxa and you can also follow him on Twitter @WxrNewsletter @BlindGordie or @VA3WXA. Also, check out his blog at
http://blindgordieblog.wordpress.com
Also, check out The Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1854305558188610/
You can also contact him on Skype and his Skype name is blindgordie.
I would like to give special thanks to those who made contributions to this latest issue as follows:
Daryl Stout WX1DER, Marc-Antoine Chabot, Bob Robichaud VE1MBR, Midland Radio Corporation, Dennis T. Paganin VA3DTP (our faithful web master and Co-Editor), Malcolm Kendal VE3BGD, Jim Langille VE1JBL, Gregory Zwicker, Phil Chadwick, Geoff Coulson and Marc Fitkin for their help and contributions to the newsletter, among others.
Sincerely, Gord The Old Reliable.VA3WXA.