2012 Leads into a Busy 2013

Where does time go?  Does it ever really move and we just age, or are our surroundings aging along with us, those which are non-organic?  You can tell, this author has been reading Stephen Hawking again.  And before you ask, a degree in meteorology is applied physics when taken to work in the atmosphere around the globe.  So back to the subject at hand, and that is the massive number of marks the weather events of 2012 left on our nation and our world.  While I will not list them exhaustively, I will link to numerous articles.  By looking at the articles, I hope you will get 2 main and resounding messages from this writing.  1.) The possible IS possible.  2.) Planning and taking action on those plans sometimes are all that keep communities in the Western World from looking like parts of a Third World country when a large scale disaster strikes.

What was forecast to be an active severe weather season this year ended up being one of the calmest in terms of tornadoes.  In August, using the numbers compiled by the Storm Prediction Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of External Affairs referred to "The Tornado Drought of 2012".  Now, ask the residents of Henryville, IN, Harrisburg, IL, Crittenden, KY, Marquette, KS, and many other towns and communities that were affected by the approximately 919 tornadoes that killed 68, injured 110, and caused at least $4.8 Billion nationwide how that "Drought" felt.  These communities are still rebuilding, physically and emotionally, with families losing friends and loved ones forever.

Hurricane Sandy/Super Storm Sandy left its indelible mark on the lives of millions in the Northeast when this hybrid hurricane/extra-tropical cyclone/nor'easter caused a weather disaster of the scope rarely seen in our lifetimes, leaving picturesque New Jersey and Long Island communities as unliveable wastelands of debris, pain, and sand.  While those in its path, both along the shoreline, inland, even west of the Appalachians where some record snows fell, Sandy is a name retired from the Hurricane Center's list of storm names, going down in history along with names like Katrina, Rita, Ivan, Betsy and Camille.

If you have heard of FEMA and the FCC's attempts to enter the world of weather notifications, CMAS/WEA, it is a controversial warning system that uses cell phone towers abilities to broadcast text message type messages to every telephone in the footprint of a cell tower.  At the current time, CMAS/WEA are no more than county-wide warnings, what often overwarn into surrounding counties that are not even in the warning area as defined by the National Weather Service.  Meanwhile a "Derecho" that formed in northern Illinois on June 29, 2012, and exploded toward the southeast eventually severely impacting parts of Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and surrounding states didn't even live up to the current CMAS/WEA standards for alerting, since currently, severe thunderstorm warnings are not currently in the list of warning types covered by this fledgling project.  WeatherCall, however, made thousands of phone calls in the path of this Derecho that affected some 15 states.  WeatherCall applauds the federal government's attempts in adding a layer of protection to the warning and alert system, and hopes that over time, people will learn to add this type of 'medium' layer of protection between a storm, and their local WeatherCall-type Warning.

While I could go on about the Storms of 2012, I think it best to focus on what you can do now.  The natural disasters that have been occurring on the planet for the past decade have driven home one thing for me that is clear.  In the realm of natural disasters, the possible IS possible.  Get to know your local disaster possibilities.  For some, tornadoes, flooding, damaging winds, hurricanes, snow and ice storms, dust storms, and or/heat and cold waves, earthquakes.  For many, all of the above!

PLEASE CLICK HERE for detailed information on what you need to do for your family, your business, and your relatives.  Be a claxon for safety and preparedness.  For those of you who have lived through a local disaster, you know how fast a community's services, which are taken for granted today, can disappear in a flash when the system is overwhelmed.  And please consider making WeatherCall's family of services a part of your safety plan.  And most importantly, share this information with all you know.  You never know who will take this information seriously, and whose life may be saved bacause of your action.

Happy New Year, 2013!

Brad Huffines

Meteorologist/National Notification Consultant, Media/Industry/Web, WeatherCall

Adjunct Instructor of Emergency Public Information / Meteorolgy, FEMA Emergency Management Institute