Hypothermia on the Appalachian Trail

 June 28th, Tennessee - North Carolina and 

Hypothermia?

You might expect that for hikers who begin their trek in March, but me? I started in June.

Took me 45 minutes to get my SVEA 123 stove to work.  

"Boy is it cold & wet & windy." Camped about 0.4 mile north of Big Bald.  

Funny, now that I am writing this for 1974 BC (before cellphones and computers) I can look up the neighboring weather of that date.  This station is not on the top of the mountain so 60 degrees F is not too bad.  But drop the temperature 15 degrees (elevation) add exhaustion, plus a wet hiker and you get the picture.

What did you do on the Summer Solstice?

Remember it is only 24 hours long.

The day started out muggy, but cleared up in the afternoon and the sun came out with cooler temps.  At least here.

The AT in October Mountain State Forest.

For more weather sites click here, or here for Iceland.

Weather (dot) gov

Perhaps a bit messy from the Great Plains to the Mid Atlantic this weekend.  Good thing the Weather.Gov is still working.

Bu about 700 federal employees from the National Weather Service could not make it to the

this past week due to the longest federal government shut down.  My thoughts go out to the furloughed employees and those without a paycheck during the cold winter months.

Smart phones and Weather Forecasting

This morning, before I headed out for a hike, I checked my Weather Underground App to see what conditions I might experience (cool and warming but dry, at least until tonight).  Before I excited the App, I was asked if I wanted to contribute to the forecasting by allowing the App to record the local pressure.  Yes, not only does my phone record where I am, but can sense the atmospheric pressure!

I declined, but then wondered how much of my actions are already being recorded by location and actions.   hmmmm

Anyway, citizen based weather reporting is not a bad thing.  I even wrote about it back in 2005 in the paper titled "Emergency Preparedness and Tourism: Both Win with Help of the Amateur Meteorologist."  See this link for the paper.  The additional data provided by citizens makes for a better forecast.  Makes sense, right, after all, Denver's weather is not representative of the whole state.

Bristow, Robert S.; Leiker, Karl; DeBlois, Roland 2006. Emergency Preparedness and Tourism: Both Win with Help of the Amateur Meteorologist. In: Peden, John G.; Schuster, Rudy M., comps., eds. Proceedings of the 2005 northeastern recreation research symposium; 2005 April 10-12; Bolton Landing, NY. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-341. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station: 135-139.

Who is Stella?

So here we go again with all the weather hype.  I am not saying a snow storm dumping 3 inches of white stuff an hour is nothing to sneeze about, but I still need to ask

Who is Stella?

Seems Stella is a commercial name of this latest nor'easter as an attempt to personalize a weather event.  Now, we do name hurricanes, but that is a function of the government.  Stella comes directly from a for-profit cable channel.  So to get a commercial free and accurate assessment of weather, go to the weather.gov (not the dot com one).

Here is what we got as of 12 noon.

Oh yeah, check on your neighbors, especially the elderly.

Winter Weather Advisory

Seems we might get some snow tonight in New England.  In Albany, NY, "significant snow" is expected.  In anticipation, I checked out my snow blower, gassed it up, and ran it for a bit yesterday so I can tackle Winter Storm Caly!.  (notice how the Foxification of the Weather Channel has gotten out of hand the past few years?)

That is why I rarely use the dot com site.

Climate Website

Wow, the internet continues to amaze me and here is another weather and climate site that pulls together so much information into graphic output and you need to check it out:

http://climatereanalyzer.org/

winter weather?

For winter 2015-2016 North America (or some of NA), check out this link at weather.gov.

Another Wx Site

Seems there are a million different sites to get weather information.  This one was shared by a friend and I submit it here (instead of bookmarking it).  It might be interesting to see how it covers the tropical storms.

enjoy!

Weather

Let me just list some cool weather websites for you.

www.weather.gov
www.wunderground.com
www.intellicast.com
forecast.io/
weather.noaa.gov/
www.metoffice.gov.uk/
www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/dstreme/
models.weatherbell.com/#
AccuWeather.com
www.bbc.co.uk/weather
www.metoffice.gov.uk
www.bom.gov.au
weather.yahoo.com
weather.cnn.com/weather/forecast.jsp
www.theweathernetwork.com/us
www.msn.com/en-us/weather
www.weather2travel.com
www.snow-forecast.com

So when you travel, just google "location" weather websites to find really good local weather info.

weather interpretation

So, everyone has an opinion about the weather.  While waiting in line at the grocery, you might talk about the good (or not so good weather) with the others in the queue.

Try this for size.  Or my paper here.

red sky at night ....

You know the old sayings, right?  Well this site is a pretty good place to start to read about more of them.  After all, a site called Granny-Miller can't be all bad?

See also this one and this one.

Classic Cold Front

If you catch this early enough, you can see the line of clouds along the frontal boundary:
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Current.aspx

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/noaa/noaa.gif

Other wx sites are good too. This is why I never rely on just one site.  I rotate around to get different views of the weather.  The European Weather sites are pretty accurate too.

Try this one for size:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/europe/europeforecast.html

can you name some others?

Today 90's and 30 degrees cooler by Saturday?

There is a saying often heard in New England about "if you don't like the weather just wait  a little bit".

Seems today's heat wave will break shortly and the daytime temps might drop 30 degrees F, by the weekend.  Check out this link from wearther.gov.

Cold fronts bring cooler weather for recreation

So the US has been blistering hot this past week.  While not a record, Westfield, MA had 98 degrees F yesterday afternoon for a high!  Add to that high humidity and it is pretty uncomfortable.

So today, we are expected a cold front to pass through the area.  Notice the station model data from this report from the AMS Datastreme Project.

You can see winds are coming from the south for New England whereas in Canada, the winds are coming from the west since the cold front has already passed the area.

Cooler air (from the west and northwest) are coming to New England!

Weather sites for travel

I have my favorites around here, you know wunderground.com, intellicast.com and the old standby weather.gov (not the commercial one).

But what about overseas?  Sure you can select one of the others, but usually better info can be had from the government sponsored site, like this one for Iceland (http://en.vedur.is/).  Even if in a foreign language, Chrome can translate the pages.

Always check to see if one is local at your travel destination!

It is official now, summer is over.

Fired up the wood stove last night when overnight lows crept into the thirties.  So it will probably be May 2013 when we let the fire die down, right?

Here is one of the many websites I use to check the weather.  While it has ads, there are a lot of extras found at the site.

Today is Columbus Day, and since we don't have classes, I have some chores to do outside (between grading papers of course).

Favorite Wx Website?

We all have them. Some may like the Weather Channel's site in the States, Intellicast for world wide data and http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ for the UK.

What is your favorite weather site?

For learning weather, I would recommend http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/dstreme/
sponsored by the American Meteorological Society. They have daily maps and data to learn weather. I love the station model.

Favorite Weather Website?

Weather is real important in recreation. You want snow for snow skiing, a good rain to plant your garden and before you paddle a dry river, and sunshine for a hike. Well maybe. For a decent weather website for the non-meteorologist, I go to the Weather Underground at http://www.wunderground.com/. It provides a bunch of useful information about the weather conditions around the world including star charts. Check it out.