Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday Season to All!

Hello to all..

The National Weather Service (NWS) Taunton SKYWARN Coordinator team and the staff of forecasters at NWS Taunton would like to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday Season to all. It was another extremely successful year for the NWS Taunton SKYWARN program in 2009.

While the summer of 2009 was not as active in terms of number of events versus the summer of 2008, it was still a fairly active summer with several significant severe weather episodes resulting in 2 tornadoes in the NWS Taunton County Warning Area and several microburst/macroburst events in the region. The winter has gotten off to a busy start with 3 significant SKYWARN Activations in the month of December including one as recently as this past weekend for the Blizzard of 2009. The reports that are received by the SKYWARN Spotter and Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotter community are a very important part of the forecasting and warning process for the National Weather Service in Taunton and is becoming increasingly critical for local, state and federal emergency management officials to gather situational awarenes and disaster intelligence on events that start out significant at the local level and could become a more widespread incident over time when severe winter or summer weather strikes. This was recently acknowledged by the attendance of FEMA and MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) officials who attended the last SKYWARN Coordinators Meeting that coincided with SKYWARN Recognition Day. The high level of reporting from SKYWARN Spotters and Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters serves a tremendously important function for NWS, Emergency Management and Public Safety officials.

Speaking of SKYWARN Recognition Day, the SKYWARN Recognition Dya event at NWS Taunton was another significant success. There were 309 total contacts made with 271 unique contacts to 41 NWS Forecast Offices. Further details will be posted in the next SKYWARN Newsletter.

In terms of SKYWARN Training, we had another successful ‘year round’ cycle of SKYWARN Training. In 2010, a new SKYWARN Training Spotter guide will be issued at SKYWARN training sessions. The new guide is significantly modernized and will have new photos and data based on the latest severe weather research. Further details on SKYWARN training will be posted as we get into the new year.

We, once again, wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday season. We look forward to working with everyone once again in 2010.

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: (508) 346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://beta.wx1box.org
http://ares.ema.arrl.org

Hello to all..

The National Weather Service (NWS) Taunton SKYWARN Coordinator team and the staff of forecasters at NWS Taunton would like to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday Season to all. It was another extremely successful year for the NWS Taunton SKYWARN program in 2009.

While the summer of 2009 was not as active in terms of number of events versus the summer of 2008, it was still a fairly active summer with several significant severe weather episodes resulting in 2 tornadoes in the NWS Taunton County Warning Area and several microburst/macroburst events in the region. The winter has gotten off to a busy start with 3 significant SKYWARN Activations in the month of December including one as recently as this past weekend for the Blizzard of 2009. The reports that are received by the SKYWARN Spotter and Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotter community are a very important part of the forecasting and warning process for the National Weather Service in Taunton and is becoming increasingly critical for local, state and federal emergency management officials to gather situational awarenes and disaster intelligence on events that start out significant at the local level and could become a more widespread incident over time when severe winter or summer weather strikes. This was recently acknowledged by the attendance of FEMA and MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) officials who attended the last SKYWARN Coordinators Meeting that coincided with SKYWARN Recognition Day. The high level of reporting from SKYWARN Spotters and Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters serves a tremendously important function for NWS, Emergency Management and Public Safety officials.

Speaking of SKYWARN Recognition Day, the SKYWARN Recognition Dya event at NWS Taunton was another significant success. There were 309 total contacts made with 271 unique contacts to 41 NWS Forecast Offices. Further details will be posted in the next SKYWARN Newsletter.

In terms of SKYWARN Training, we had another successful ‘year round’ cycle of SKYWARN Training. In 2010, a new SKYWARN Training Spotter guide will be issued at SKYWARN training sessions. The new guide is significantly modernized and will have new photos and data based on the latest severe weather research. Further details on SKYWARN training will be posted as we get into the new year.

We, once again, wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday season. We look forward to working with everyone once again in 2010.

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: (508) 346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://beta.wx1box.org
http://ares.ema.arrl.org