Mark Sudduth in Pascagoula, MS

[Lindaloo]

County prepares weather systems
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The Mississippi Press
PASCAGOULA -- Local government leaders and first responders meet National Weather Service forecasters Monday and received an in-depth look at how forecasts were made during severe weather.

Butch Loper, Jackson County Civil Defense Director, organized Monday's Weather Workshop at the Jackson County Civil Defense office in Pascagoula, to introduce NWS meteorologists Mike Koziara and Frank Revitte and hurricanetrack.com's Mark Sudduth.

"We talk every day with the National Weather Center and have for years and years," Looper said. He said that familiarity allowed him to trust the forecasts issued by the Slidell, La., and Mobile, Ala., NWS centers.

By introducing the forecasters to the local emergency responders and leaders, Looper said he hopes to increase their trust of the forecasts.

"I wanted to give them a better feeling for the forecasters," he said.

Ocean Springs Alderman Julia Weaver said the meeting was informative.

"I learned a lot," she said, adding the presentations gave her a better understanding of how the NWS works and who the NOAA contacts are for the area. NWS is under National Oceanic and Atomospheric Administration.

Weaver also said the meeting raised a number of questions in her mind about how prepared Ocean Springs is for a disaster -- particularly tornadoes.

"I wonder if we are properly set up for notifying the public in the event of a tornado," Weaver said.

Recently, a tornado hit a high school in Enterprise, Ala., and a second tornado hit a hospital in Americus, Ga. Weaver said both of those tornadoes, spawned by the same storm system, had her thinking about ways to protect her residents.

The two most serious issues in storms, Koziara said, were mobile homes and fresh water flooding off tropical storms and hurricanes.

"Staying in a mobile home is not a safe place to be," Koziara said, noting that the structures of most mobile homes are hard pressed to withstand straight line winds from tropical storms.

"All the counties that we serve are still having this problem," he said, noting that a large number of residents along the Gulf Coast live in mobile homes.

He also noted that 80 percent of fatalities from tropical storms and hurricanes over the last 30 years did not come from the storms, but from fresh water flooding caused by the surge and rainfall.

The best defense against storms, Koziara said, is information. The best way to get information to the public, he said, is by NOAA weather radio.

Weather radios can be purchased from most retail stores, Koziara said. In Jackson County, storm warnings are broadcast by stations in Slidell and Mobile.

Loper said he is trying to raise money to purchase weather radios and give out to school children. "We can use as many as we can get," he said.

Sudduth told the group that his Web site is another tool they can use to track hurricanes coming into the Gulf. He said his group attempted to safely get in the path of oncoming hurricanes and measure the strength.

In addition to portable weather stations that can be left to measure winds, Sudduth said hurricanetrack.com tried to leave cameras in areas where storm surges flood so that researchers can have some real-time data about the surges.

"There are a lot of holes in what we know about hurricanes," Sudduth said.

Currently, Sudduth said hurricanetrack.com has two permanent weather stations in Mississippi, one in Waveland and the other on top of the Jackson County Civil Defense building in Pascagoula. Information from the site is available free on the Internet.

Sudduth said he was in Pascagoula Monday to speak to the workshop and install new programming at the weather station. The new programming will allow data to be transmitted faster to the Internet and provide an easier interface for users to view the data.

In addition to standard weather data, the Web site also has a Web cam, which can show various views of Pascagoula. Sudduth said the group is in the process of installing a camera that can be rotated 360 degrees and moved up or down so that viewers can see different views of the city. Also, he said the new camera will allow researchers to focus in on storms as they come through the city.


http://www.gulflive.com/news/mississipp ... 221020.xml


Thanks for helping us out Mark!

[hurricanetrack]

Thanks! The weather data is now even easier to use. Check out both sites below. Click on the archive buttons and you'll see our enhancements- a nice table of contents of previous day's data.

http://www.hurricanetrack.com/jacksoneoc

http://www.hurricanetrack.com/baywaveland

Also note that the EM director, Butch, installed a pan, zoom, tilt cam in to our system so you will see it rotate and do other things. We can zoom in on storms and other events in the Pascagoula area. Butch and co are still learning the system but it is cool that you can see different images as the cam moves around. Will come in handy during next hurricane. You know, 30 years from now

[Lindaloo]

It is about time Pascagoula got with the times. lol. I like the cam. Butch is a great person and really cares about us. A good friend of mine, Todd Adams, was the EOC Director, but he resigned to go on to better things. He is also a meteorologist and was one of the forecasters for WLOX. I really feel safe with Butch though. He is a people person, unlike our Mayor, but that is for another thread.

[MGC]

Linda, where did Todd go?.....MGC

[Lindaloo]

He was at WLOX after he left the EOC. I lost touch with him. We have a reunion coming up and he will be there, so I will find out.