John Winters wrote: > > Ralph wrote; > > > > >At the risk of advocating yet one more safety device, I have the > >following suggestion. Buy a weather radio. > > (SNIP) > > A weather radio can be handy but (always a but) they provide wide area > forecasts that may not be applicable in your specific area. This > particularly applies in areas with katabatic winds, thunder storms, > significant natural land features, and the possibility that a weather > system may not move as predicted. Actually, the forecasting, at least down here in the States, is getting better and better. Moreover, there is a system of highly sophisticated local warnings that can spot and warn within minutes of adverse situations that develop suddenly like tornadoes and worse-than-earlier-predicted storms. My understanding. That is what the weather alert feature on the radios does by sending a signal, a loud buzz, that alerts you to turn on the radio and listen to the alert advisory. It is expected that within a few years, that alert setup will be local down to within a small locale. I agree that they don't always get things right. But they are certainly in a better position than a person who has taken even a full day's weather observing course. I think what they do is to alert you to _possible_ freakish changes that may occur. Things that may not be so evident in the immediate area around you. My general approach even with things like small craft warnings is to not scratch a trip but rather go to the specific site. If conditions don't look bad when they were supposed to be currently bad, I will go out but cautiously. If the prediction is for some drastic change in the middle of the day, I stay alert to it or just cut the trip short. The weather radio in this area has generally been on the money in terms of changing situations. Some people have not heeded this to their discomfort and death. On the former, that fellow who got caught in a storm that had been predicted all day and got blown over but lived to tell about it on this and other listservers earlier this year. Another fellow who ventured out into NY Harbor in a sailboat with friends wasn't so luck over Labor Day and drowned. I had a similar experience on the Hudson with a calm day suddenly leading to disastrous lightening storms. Luckily we were listening to the radio. It was so localized that the storm was predicted to be crossing our path just dead ahead. (We were on a river-length multiday paddle.) We ducked into a spot just before it all hit and sat out hail and lightening sheltered deep in the woods. > I have travelled with a professional meteorologist and he always pointed > out the weather forecasts were never intended for local use. How is that??? The experiences mentioned above question that statement. They are. Maybe not everywhere. But they are in many places. Down here we are aware of changing patterns within 10 miles. That I would consider "local." ralph -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Dec 15 1998 - 09:18:16 PST
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