High Wind Warning

Living at the Washington coast means you need to be aware of approaching winter storms.
High wind warnings are the most common weather warning for this area and are most likely to happen from November through February.

A high wind warning means a hazardous high wind event is expected or occurring. Sustained wind speeds of at least 40 mph or gusts of 58 mph or more can lead to property damage.

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Portland, OR will issue weather warnings when necessary.

Any warning from the NWS for Zone WAZ021 (South Washington Coast) will also be posted on the top of the home page at 642weather.com. I use an automated RSS feed to display the warnings in real time. I also have an Advisories page that displays the full text of the warnings. The type of warnings I have seen in the past are for High Wind, Dense Fog, High Surf, Flood, Tsunami, Cold Weather, Frost, etc.

I wanted to let you know that in addition to viewing weather warnings online, you can sign up for free e-mail/pager/cell phone weather warning alerts. Just go to www.emergencye.com click on “Washington”, then click on “Pacific County”, fill in the form with your email, county, and zip code. Because I have the alerts sent to my cell phone, the only box I have checked on the form is “Severe Weather Information”. Please note that some cell phone accounts are subject to a small charge for receiving e-mail text messages. Check with your cell phone carrier if you are unsure of this.

Here is a sample message from the Emergency Email Network:
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HIGH WIND WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 AM PST THIS MORNING
FOR THE NORTH OR COAST & THE SO. WA COAST.

THE NATL WEATHER SVC IN PORTLAND HAS ISSUED A HIGH WIND
WARNING.WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 AM PST THIS MORNING.

If you find this information useful would you please submit a comment to this post or contact me, thanks - Mike Challis

On the first Sunday in November, clocks are set back one hour at 2:00 a.m. local daylight time, which becomes 1:00 a.m. local standard time.

More Info … http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.php

Tsunami Warning System Siren

Pacific County to Test All Hazard Alert Broadcast Sirens October 15 and October 22, 2008 Oct 7, 2008 – Pacific County Emergency Management will be testing the All Hazard Alert Broadcast (AHAB) sirens on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, at noon, and again on October 22, 2008 at noon.

The sirens will ring the Westminster Chimes for 90 seconds on October 15, and will sound the actual warning signal – a straight, non-warbling siren tone – for 90 seconds on October 22, 2008.

No verbal message will follow either test. A preview of the warning system playing Westminster Chimes is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3ICGMgnVo

In actual events, the sirens will sound the constant tone (no warble) for three continuous minutes, and may be followed by a verbal message. The Pacific County Tsunami Plan calls for the sirens to be activated any time Pacific County is placed within the area of a tsunami warning. A tsunami warning means that an earthquake in the Pacific Rim may have generated a tsunami wave that has the potential to reach the Pacific County coastline within a three hour window of time.
Residents are asked to listen for the test and to report their street address and results or concerns to the Pacific County Emergency Management Office at (360) 875-9340/(360) 642-9340 following each test.

Simulated Tsunami Events for Long Beach WA

The NOAA Center for Tsunami Research modeled tsunami inundation from a great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake for the coastal communities of Long Beach and Ocean Shores, Washington. A high-resolution numerical model was used to estimate tsunami propagation and inundation along the outer coast of southwest Washington.

The tsunami source is based on prior work by Walsh et al., (2000) that simulates a great Mw 9.1 earthquake with an asperity off the coast of northern Washington. Details of this scenario and the model results are provided in Venturato et al., 2007. These animations depict wave propagation and inundation at each location.

Propagation and inundation (research products)

* Long Beach propagation and Inundation [7.7MB file, .mov]
* Ocean Shores propagation and Inundation [7.6MB file, .mov]

Detailed Inundation (research products)

* Long Beach Inundation [49.2 MB file, .mov]
* Ocean Shores Inundation [139.6 MB file, .mov]

If you live in or visit the Long Beach Peninsula, be sure to read up on Tsunami preparedness and warnings How will I know if a Tsunami is coming to Long Beach, WA?

Mount St. Helens returns to slumber

Mount St. Helens Returns to Slumber: The nearly three and a half years of eruption at Mount St. Helens is over for now and on July 10, 2008, scientists lowered the volcano alert level from Advisory to Normal and the aviation color code from Yellow to Green.

… Read more about it: Mount St. Helens is over for now

Suggested use: Scheduled updates for web cam image overlay, or Web Cam Image Uploader

Cons: Your PC needs to be constantly on and online for this to work.

Put the code below into a VBS script file called ‘callmywebpage.vbs’ (be sure to set the correct URL in the code first), save somewhere you can remember like Desktop or My Documents, etc.:

'begin VBS script code: 

Call LogEntry()

Sub LogEntry()

'Force the script to finish on an error.
On Error Resume Next

'Declare variables
Dim objRequest
Dim URL

'The URL link.
URL = "http://www.yourwebsite.com/image-webcam-overlay.php"

Set objRequest = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")

'Open the HTTP request and pass the URL to the objRequest object
objRequest.open "GET", URL , false

'Send the HTML Request
objRequest.Send

'Set the object to nothing
Set objRequest = Nothing

End Sub

'end VBS script code

Next: schedule the task on a timed basis (I.E. every 5 minutes)…

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Scheduling Scripts with the Windows Task Scheduler:
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To schedule a task (these instructions are for WinXP, Vista may be different)
On the Windows task bar, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, then click Scheduled Tasks, Double-click Add Scheduled Task. The Scheduled Task Wizard appears. Click Next , then click Browse. The Select Program to Schedule dialog appears. Navigate to the script that you created, click it, then Open. You are returned to the Scheduled Task Wizard.

Provide a name for the task, or keep the default, which is the filename, specify how often to run the script, click Daily, then click Next. Leave the start time and date default, click Every, then select 1 Days (don’t worry we will change this to minutes later), then click Next.

Type the user name and password for the windows logon account that will run the script,
(if you do not use a windows password: leave it blank) check the box to Open advanced properties, then click Finish.
(if you do not use a windows password: click OK on the error you will get: ‘0×80070005 Access denied’)

(if you do not use a windows password: check ‘run only if logged in’ and the ‘0×80070005 Access denied’ error will not come back.)
Click the Schedule tab, and then click Advanced. Click the Repeat task check box to select it, and then specify Every 5 minutes, specify Duration 24 hours. Click OK, and then click OK again.

Note: you may have to “Run” your task the first time to get it going. right click your task, select Run.

If you want to edit the task again: On the Windows task bar, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, then click Scheduled Tasks.. right click your task, select properties.

More Info …
How to schedule a task using Windows Task Scheduler
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308569&sd=tech

HOW TO: Modify a Scheduled Task to Repeat By Minutes or Hours
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/226795

Use my contact form PHP script on your web site to allow users to easily contact you. Your email address is completely concealed so spammers cannot get your email addresses to spam.

More about the Contact form PHP Script

http://www.642weather.com/weather/wap

The wap pages are specially coded to be viewed on a cell phone or PDA. There is a Current conditions page, a forecast page, and a weather graphics page.  If you find this weather site useful, please contact me, it is always nice to hear from someone who finds the site useful. - Mike Challis

In response to a letter to the editor in the Chinook Observer of July 30, 2008, I would like to point out there are several documents available on the evacuation routes out of Long Beach and the rest of the Peninsula.  These are brochures developed by the State of
Washington and several of the Emergency Management Offices.  We have attached them to this article.

The concern by the writer of the letter was the locked gates involving City property that is located on higher ground  … read entire article

Be sure to bookmark my Tsunami Warnings and Preparedness page

Allergy Alert / Pollen Count Forecast for Long Beach, WA

You can find the link on the main page by the “Allergy Forecast” and from the “Forecast” on the left menu