Buresh Blog: Social Distancing... “Weather School” at Home.... CoCoRaHS - Need Volunteer Weather Observers

Wow - amazing how quickly our vernacular has changed over the last couple weeks: social distancing, isolation, quarantine, homeschooling, recession & on & on. I’ve heard it referred to as “the new normal”, but there’s nothing normal about it. From Matthew CDC:

Remember that hope is eternal, faith is paramount & love conquers all. I often reflect: “Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can & the Wisdom to know the difference”.

I can say this “forced” social experiment - while it obviously has its ups & downs - has some benefits. For me - spending some true quality time with the family has been priceless. Now, don’t get me wrong - it’s not been a perfect world :), but my wife & I in particular have been able to spend more quality time together than at any time since the first few years of our marriage. It’s literally helped remind me why I so eagerly said “I do” nearly 25 years ago. Now - my teenager - probably (well - I know) - has a somewhat (let’s be honest - a whole lot) different view of things. Though I have to believe this will be a tremendous life lesson for our youth as well.... in the long run.

So a lot of homeschooling right now. Some NOAA ideas & links * here *. I’ll post a series of at home weather experiments & projects on my facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/MikeFirstAlert/ A couple of quick, easy & cheap possibilities include building a thermometer (temperature) & anemometer (wind speed).

ANEMOMETER:

March is the month for NOAA’s annual call for volunteer weather observers - CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network)- go * here *. These volunteers & observations greatly help our long term analysis of the weather & potentially increase our forecasting accuracy in the future. In the short term, such a network gives us a better idea of localized areas that might be very wet vs. very dry.... or very cool &/or very hot.

The National Snow & Ice Center (NSIDC) has declared that Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent on March 5th this year - 1 week before the 30 year avg. of March 12th. At 5.81 million sq. miles, ice coverage was the 11th lowest in the 42-year satellite record & 228,000 sq. miles below the 1981-2010 avg maximum of 6.04 million sq. miles. The good news is this is more ice than 7 of the last 10 years.

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