Hello to all…
This will be the first in a series of monthly Eastern Massachusetts ARES reports that we will begin publishing on the Eastern Massachusetts ARES web site and will redistribute via the ARRL Section News provided we can meet the Section News deadline with our report. In the future, we plan to include additional statistical information on number of SKYWARN and ARES activations, total number of ARES members in the section as well as a narrative report in key happenings in Eastern Massachusetts ARES. We hope everyone finds these reports informative.
It has been a very active month of August from an ARES-SKYWARN perspective. A total of 7 SKYWARN activations have occurred between early August through early September. The largest activations were for Tropical Storm Henri and its impacts to mostly Southeast, South-Central and Southwest Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut and the remnants of Ida which occurred last Wednesday Night into Thursday. During Henri, Eastern Massachusetts ARES was placed on standby and over 120,000 lost power in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut with the most power outages in Rhode Island where over 80,000 lost power which is around 15-20% of the state of Rhode Island. The WX1BOX Amateur Radio team was active with self-activation gathering reports from ARES-SKYWARN teams all across the NWS Boston/Norton coverage area with numerous reports sent to WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center, where reports from our network made the 11 AM August 22nd, 201 National Hurricane Center advisory. Some of this activity was covered by ARRL HQ and here are links to those articles:
http://www.arrl.org/news/grace-and-henri-keep-amateur-radio-weather-spotters-busy
http://www.arrl.org/news/hurricane-watch-net-turns-attention-to-henri-as-storm-hits-new-england
The remnants of Ida slammed the region with a widespread 3-8” of rain with isolated amounts approaching 9” causing widespread significant pockets of flash flooding. The remnants of Ida also caused severe weather in the from of straightline wind damage from wind gusts between 40-55 MPH with isolated higher winds of 60-80 MPH in thunderstorms in Dartmouth, Rochester and Yarmouthport, Massachusetts with an EF0 Tornado in Dennis Massachusetts. Cape Cod ARES-SKYWARN was active overnight and provided critical damage reports during the overnight hours through the efforts of KB1QCQ-Tom Wruk. Later in the morning based on some reports of storm damage received in Yarmouthport Massachusetts, KB1TLR-Barry Hutchinson, was able to provide excellent photos of the damage area and Tom and Barry’s information were part of the NWS Boston/Norton storm survey to determine that a EF0 Tornado occurred in Dennis Massachusetts with max winds of 75 MPH and straightline wind damage of 80 MPH occurred in Yarmouthport Massachusetts.
More information on these activations with post storm reports and photos will be posted on wx1box.org over the course of the next week.
Cape Cod ARES conducted a district exercise on Saturday August 7th. The drill went well with communications via NBEMS (Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System), Winlink, HF and 2m simplex all practiced during the exercise. The exercise also received excellent publicity from Cape Cod ARES via the following link:
A reminder that the Eastern Massachusetts ARES Net for the month of September will be on the second Monday in September on Monday 9/13/21 at 830 PM on the MMRA Repeater Network due to the holiday on the first Monday of the month immediately following the RACES Nets which are also moved due to the Labor Day holiday. Hope to hear folks check into the net on Monday 9/13.
As we go through the month of September, we will be approaching the peak of hurricane season. Given the very wet weather pattern of the last few months, we must remain vigilant for any tropical systems that could impact our region as either a Tropical Storm/Hurricane or a remnant system for both SKYWARN and ARES activations.
Thanks to all for their continued support of Eastern Massachusetts ARES!
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://ares.ema.arrl.org
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