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Can I Have a Balloon? By Bill Xam |
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I t
was a cool crisp day in northern Michigan and all I wanted was a
balloon. But they weren’t handing out weather balloons. What I got
instead was a lot of fun and a great time at the open house that the
National Weather Service, Gaylord, Michigan station had recently. You’ve
probably heard of first responders, the people who respond to
emergencies to help save lives. The National Weather Service gives first
responders the information they need to do their jobs; The office issues
about 90 weather warnings and 1300 marine advisories a year and issues
fire advisories for 3 areas, Sleeping Bear Dunes, The Huron and Manistee
National forests. During a recent wildfire in Michigan, the NWS tracked
the smoke from the fire on their radar!
Every living thing on this planet from
the smallest viruses to humans to giant whales needs 3 things to live;
water, food and air. What every living thing depends on is the weather.
It ties every single life together. Weather controls how we get
our food, where we find our water
Gales? You’re covered. Blizzards, tornados, thunderstorms? Gaylord NWS is your best friend in northern Michigan. Manned by talented people like Cambell, the station also has 5, count them 5 weather broadcasting stations throughout northern Michigan and works closely with the National Forest Service to predict fire danger. |
Working from what looks like the bridge
of a starship, the staff at
Gaylord NWS works 24 hours a day, 7
days a week keeping the civilian, aviation and boating populations safe
and snug as they go about their business. The office also issues
aviation forecasts for Traverse City, Alpena and Pellston, Michigan.
This innocent looking facility strikes you as one of the most important weather forecasting facilities in the midwest if not the nation. Responsible for over 4500 marine forecasts covering 4300 miles of great lakes shoreline (12 marine zones in the great lakes) for Lakes Michigan, Huron and parts of Superior, NWS Gaylord covers everything from freighter safety to forest fire forecasts to blizzard warnings to aviation warnings and forecasts. Safety and weather warnings for freighters that carry many of the products and supplies that the midwest of the United States relies on comes from this office situated in the smack dab in the center of Michigan between Lake Michigan and Huron almost right on the 45th parallel, the midpoint between the equator and the North Pole. Another part of weather data comes from
unmanned data collection. Here's a photo of a
"Fischer-Porter-Belfort"
Weather predictions are done by 3 advanced
computer models running on computers in Washington D.C. using physics
formulas that would make Einstein blush. The knowledgeable people at the
local National Weather Service offices like Gaylord (most with
masters degrees) pick and choose between the predictions depending on
which model happens to be producing the most accurate weather outlooks.
2006 marks the 10th Also on hand was the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, another division of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which now has a buoy tethering system for scuba divers and snorkeling shipwreck explorers. The program is approved by the Coast Guard and are highly visible for everyone interested in seeing great lakes shipwrecks, which include the E.B Allen, the Montana and the Shamrock, all ships that have sunk off of Thunder Bay. I'll be covering that in an upcoming article. The author would like to thank the NWS Gaylord, Michigan staff for their time. |
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