NOAA – mPING App for National Severe Storms Labratory with Outerdoor Thermometers

New smart phone app lets public report rain, hail, sleet and snow to NOAA.

What in the devil is Weather Wizard talking about now?

An app for our mobile phones so the average Joe can be a part of the National Severe Storm Advisory  and anonymously report precipitation from their Apple or Android mobile device. Don’t they have enough weather people now?

In conjunction with the University of Oklahoma and NOAA mPING Mobil Phone App is a downloadedable app for Iphones and Android mobile devices.  mPING stands for mobile Precipitation Identification Near the Ground. NSSL and OU researchers will use the mPING submissions to build a valuable database of tens of thousands of observations from across the United States.

With the mPING app, anyone can send a weather observation on the go. The user simply opens the app, selects the type of precipitation that is falling at his or her location, and presses submit. The user’s location and the time of the observation are automatically included in the report.

All submissions will become part of a research project called PING – Precipitation Identification Near the Ground. NSSL and OU researchers will use the mPING submissions to build a valuable database of tens of thousands of observations from across the United States.

All reports in the PING database, both past and real-time, can be viewed on the project’s web site. This allows anyone to see all observations in time and space to better identify the locations where hazardous forms of precipitation exist.

Many thanks for NOAA’s web site on the mPING reporting and allowing private citizens gain the brief rush of contributing to something important.  We have attached several websites for more information regarding the National Severe Storms Weather Advisory.

National Weather Service 

Storm Prediction Center

Weather Forecast for Your Locale

Citizens Weather Observation Program

To get instruments for measuring the weather in your backyard go to:

Best Outdoor Thermometers

Stay warm and dry, spring is a comin’,

Weather Wizard

PS check out this unique storm predictor

Storm Glass Weather Predictor – 

invented by the captain of Charles Darwin’s ship, Beagle.

Outdoor Decorative Thermometers

Retro Classic Metal Thermometers

Outdoor Thermometers Used In Advertising

(taken from several other sites)

In the early part of the Twentieth Century, America was predominantly an agrarian     society. Life in rural parts of the country revolved around small towns. While larger towns may have had a local newspaper, many small towns did not. Newspapers, with the accompanying advertising, were slow to come to many rural towns. Members of the surrounding area would often congregate around small general stores, grange halls and feed stores. Local news, gossip and even predictions of the weather could be

Retro Advertising Thermometers (page)

found floating around on the breeze as local residents and farmers passed through town. Marketing and advertising types of the time were looking for new and innovative ways to get out their message out. Radio was catching on though not everyone in rural America owned one of these new fangled marvels of mass communication. Advertising, even on regional radio, could be expensive. The concept of product branding was just taking hold and marketers knew that even then that repetition was one of the keys to successful advertising. But how to get enough eyes on the message was still a bit of a conundrum.

In the days before an interstate highway system and air travel, trains provided the primary means of transportation. This was true for goods and people. Still not every town was even close to a rail line. In the wake of successful marketing tools like the mail order catalog, marketers knew that direct connections to customers were one way to advance a brand name. Bringing the water to the horse so to speak became the method by which consumers and local retailers would be reached.

Companies dispatched legions of salesmen to sell every type of product imaginable. Hair gel, chewing tobacco, soda pop, crop seeds and farm implements were offered to local retailers for resale. Believing that bearing gifts while visiting a merchant may produce more sales, many companies would provide merchants with tokens. In a practice that still alive today, salesmen would provide promotional metal signs and outdoor thermometers. Outdoor thermometers and metal signs are now highly prized by collectors of Americana.

It was not uncommon to see general stores and gas stations festooned with metal signs. The outdoor thermometer became particularly popular if, for no other reason, because of its utility. During the first half of the Twentieth Century, the science of meteorology was still evolving. Knowing the temperature and which way the wind blew gave rural folks a pretty good indication of what to expect from Mother Nature.

Some of the most well known brand names in the world first appeared on metal outdoor thermometers. NeHi® soda pop, John Deere® tractors, Mail Pouch® tobacco and dozens of other popular brand names owe their success in part to the humble outdoor thermometer. Quality reproductions of these and other famous outdoor thermometers are available to those folks who are not collectors but can appreciate the feelings of nostalgia evoked by items from our collective past.

Today we have all manner of high tech gizmos like digital outdoor thermometers and even wireless outdoor thermometers. These gadgets are very functional as far as it goes, but the classic outdoor thermometer evokes a wistful feeling of nostalgia.

Just tryin’ to keep the weather right,

Weather Wizard

PS: Thanks to http://www.stationbay.com and vintagesignshack.com for all of the thermometers in our listings and their contributions to the article above on the particular post.

Thermometers featuring an ad from the Coca-Cola company. There units were very popular in the 40’s and 50’s as an outdoor metal thermometer offered by various manufacturers of popular items as advertising.

Retro Classic Metal

Remember the Edmund Fitzgerald?

Remembering November 10, 1975

from the blog Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network

“When the gales of November came slashin’… “

Today is the 37th anniversary of the sinking of the Great Lakes freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald. The first time I really became aware of this incident was when I first heard Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.  The Great Lakes have a long history of intense fall and winter storms and the wrecks of hundreds of ships litter the lake bottoms.  The weather during the fall can quickly go from good to very bad, and such was the case in November of 1975.

Surface map on November 6, 1975

The week of November 3 was unseasonably warm week across the eastern two-thirds of the country. A surface ridge of high pressure stretched from the southern tip of Texas to Quebec, Canada keeping the eastern two-thirds in southerly flow.  In the days leading up to November 10, 1975 temperatures reached the middle 60s as far north as the Minnesota-Canadian border.

In Superior, Wisconsin the Edmund Fitzgerald was loaded with more than 26,000 tons of taconite pellets destined for a steel mill near Detroit. The weather while the Fitzgerald was in Superior was, well, superior. Temperatures early in the week reached 74°F, and when the Fitzgerald left port at 4:30 p.m. on November 9 the temperature was in the 50s°F and skies were cloudy.  She soon joined up with the Arthur M. Anderson, another freighter which left Two Harbors, Minnesota bound for Gary, Indiana.

Surface map for the morning of November 9, 1975

At 7:00 p.m. the National Weather Service issued gale warnings for Lake Superior, forecasting E to NE winds during the night, shifting to NW to N by the afternoon of November 10.  At approximately 10:40 p.m. the NWS revised its forecast for eastern Lake Superior to easterly winds becoming southeasterly the morning of the 10th. At about 2:00 am November 10 the NWS upgraded the gale warning to a storm warning with a prediction of “northeast winds 35 to 50 knots becoming northwesterly 28 to 38 knots on Monday, waves 8 to 15 feet”.  The captains of the two freighters decided to take a route closer to the Canadian shore which would protect them from the northeast winds.

The surface weather map for the morning of November 10, 1975, about 12 hours before the Edmund Fitzgerald sank.

The center of the storm passed over Lake Superior on the morning of November 10. As the center of the low passed over the ships winds theAnderson reported winds dropped for a time to 5 mph. As the low moved to the northeast, the winds shifted into the south, then west and northwest and rapidly increased speed. Visibility dropped as snow began falling in the cold air plunging south behind the storm. The observed winds by theAnderson and by the Stannard Rock Weather Station during the afternoon of November 10 were from 40 to 58 knots from the west-northwest, gusting to 65 knots. The Anderson also observed wave heights of 18 to 25 feet during the afternoon of November 10 and later reported wind gusts from 70 to 75 knots.

The northwest winds were the worst possible situation for the Fitzgerald. The winds had a large fetch over open water allowing large waves to build. The Fitzgerald by this time was sailing southeast toward Whitefish Bay and passed over dangerous shallow water near Six Fathom Island.

At 3:30 p.m. on November 10 the captain of the Fitzgerald radioed the Anderson and reported that the ship was taking on water and listing. The Fitzgerald had also lost its radar, and was now relying on the Anderson to be its “eyes” in the storm. The first mate of the Anderson contacted the Fitzgerald at 7:10 p.m. and Caption McSorley of the Fitzgerald, when asked how they were doing, said “We are holding our own.”  At 7:15 p.m. the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from the radar.

On November 14 a Navy aircraft detected a large magnetic anomaly about 17 miles from Whitefish Point. A Coast Guard cutter located two large pieces of wreckage three days later using side scan sonar. In May 1976 a Navy controlled underwater recovery vehicle confirmed the wreckage was that of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

There are a number of theories on how the Fitzgerald sank. The initial theory was that the ship took on water through poorly sealed hatches, lost buoyancy, and sank when hit by huge waves. Another theory is that the ship may have been damaged in shallow water when it passed near Six Fathom Shoal. The debate continues to this day.

If you would like to read more about the Edmund Fitzgerald, check the following sources.

The Fateful Journey (The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum)

NTSB Marine Accident Report: SS EDMUND FITZGERALD Sinking in Lake Superior  

Posted by Steve Hilberg at 6:00 AM 2 comments 

Hope you enjoyed this posting from CoCoRaHS blog about the sinking of the ship memorialized by Gordon Lightfoot (Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald)

Keeping my head above water,

The Weather Wizard

The Gulf Stream Affects The Temperature, HOW?

Why is it warmer in England in the winter than NYC?  Both of these famous worldwide locations are on similar latitudes, so why is the average winter temperature 42 degrees Fahrenheit in London and in the lower 30s for New York City? In fact by examining the exact location of both cities, London is actually farther north than the “Big Apple”. So, the question remains,”Why is it warmer in London?”.

The simple answer is because of the effects of the warming current in the Gulf Stream. It starts in the Caribbean and flows straight to Florida and then up the east coast of the United States until it nearly reaches the northeastern edges of Newfoundland, Canada before beginning its path eastward bypassing Iceland and Greenland to the north, beginning an southeastern path toward the English Channel, separating the British Isles from the continent of Europe. The warm waters from the Caribbean bring the warmer air of the south and depositing one the far western extremities of England, Ireland and France.

Benjamin Franklin first noticed the Gulf Stream on the 1st of his 8 ocean crossings, and wrote about its effect on the water, the weather, other ships and his own vessel. His map of the Gulf Stream was the first to fully show the stream and its potential of warming all the environs it touches.

Mr. Franklin’s drawing of the Gulf Stream is below and a link to several articles relating the   wonder of how it managed to stay so warm for so long.

Enjoy Mr. Franklin’s writings about the Gulf Stream.

Floating in the Gulf Stream,

The Weather Wizard

For Additional information about the Gulf Stream check out the site listed below:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gulfstreamspeed.html

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/library/readings/gulf/gulf.html

http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_inquiring_weather.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/ocean-current.htm

Time Change, Is It For Everyone?

It is coming this weekend for most of us.  The annual time fall back to give an extra hour in the morning for the kids going to school and the farmers going out to do the daily chores. Did you … Continue reading →

Robert Fitzroy, Charles Darwin, the Beagle and the Storm Weather Glass

As any reader knows, this blog and its author are anal about thermometers and weather conditions in general.  While reviewing one of the products we carry, the Fitzroy Storm Warning Indicator, I reviewed it with Wikipedia for more information of interest.

First, we all know that the indicator was used by Mr. Fitzroy, the captain of Charles Darwin’s ship, the Beagle, on the journey.  The storm indicator proved to be reliable as a barometer at that time. Go to Wikipedia to  this information.  Once you are there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_glass) read about Fitzroy and the Storm Glass Indicator and then for the truly adventurous, follow the discussion tab and find literally 100’s of pages regarding weather activity.

The great mystery of the Storm Glass is what is actually in that liquid that changes color and lights up the different chrystals foreshadowing the future weather with relative accuracy. Apparently there are different opinions of what the mixture should be, the good captain of the Beagle’s formula is listed here:

distilled water, ethanol, potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, and camphor

So does this formula work and how is it viewed in today’s world of digital communication and scientific calculations and even satililates helping with the forecasting and tracking of storms in the middle of the world’s oceans.  Check out the links and find out how this  “magical” devise helped keep sailors alive and ship still floating.

The Storm Weather Indicator does work,  but at the time and even today how it works is the biggest question?  Anybody get an idea on what the magic may be, drop a line and we will publish all theories.  Need more info, go to the link listed above.

Clear weather’s acomin’

Weatherwizard