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Military Salute

Click here

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Windy Ridge Fire Pictures

Check under the picture tab on the left side tool bar for pictures of the Windy Ridge Fire.

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Skywarn Net on WARA Repeater

The Orange County Skywarn net is on the WARA repeater at 145.400 minus offset with a PL of 103.5

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County of Orange Races and Orange County Skywarn team up for communications

As of January 8th the County of Orange Races http://www.ocraces.org and Orange County Skywarn have come together to share information in the case of emergencies or weather events.

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e-Spotter program up and running

Welcome to e-Spotter

The NWS in San Diego for years has offered a spotter reporting option online for use by trained weather spotters and the public.Users would enter their information and report via an online form and transmit.Within a minute the report would arrive in the forecast office on workstations alerting forecasters to the report conditions and would be automatically added to the report log. Recently, this system's capability was removed due to security issues and an alternate fix was implemented to get around those issues, but the new fix has some vulnerabilities. For example, if our email system goes down, or is inadvertently shut down, the whole online reporting system fails. So we began looking for a more robust online reporting system and found eSpotter. eSpotter is supported by the Central Region Headquarters (CRH) of the NWS. It is used by nearly half of all 122 weather forecast offices in the nation and has a reliable track record. The system underwent a three week test period with a test group of trained spotters and has proven usable and reliable. One drawback of implementing the system is that it is ontrolled from a distance, so development and customization of this reporting page for Southern California use will be very slow. Please try out the system for yourself by going to this link: espotter.weather.gov. Please register, then wait for the password to be emailed to you (you can change the password later). Explore the page and the options. At the top, click on "Location" and enter your location as specifically as you can and also your spotter ID# in parentheses. For example, if you live in the City Heights area of San Diego, enter "San Diego - City Heights (SDG111)" Also please go into the "preferences" section and enter your spotter ID number in the "Add Identifier" section. Your location will show up each time you log in. As 3 always, if you are reporting away from your home location, please specify the exact location of the weather event in the text box. When you choose "create a report" at the top of the page, note that there are two different pages to choose from: the severe weather page and the winter weather page. You'll notice this is a rather generic page for the nation. For reports on surf, dense fog, or any other weather not available on the pages, click on "other" and write your report in the text box and submit. At the top right corner of the page, you'll see "Weather Report Status" with a tally of the number of submitted and received reports. The numeral 1 will appear in the "submitted" row. A forecaster must acknowledge receipt of your report and when that happens, a numeral 1 will appear in the "received" row so you can confirm receipt that way. Click on "Messages" at the top of the page and you'll see a summary of all your recent reports and responses from the NWS. Check this to see if more information or another report is requested.

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Change of E-mail Information

Mike (KJ6EQ - ORA 114) Orange County Coordinator has changed his E-Mail address to:

memclaughlin@verizon.net

Please make the needed changes in your address book for future contacts.

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Hi everyone

We lost our normal Skywarn meeting place so we are looking for a new location. We would like to have a place cy located in Orange county so spotters do not have to travel across county, large enough for 30 plus people with ability to project slides onto a white screen or background and nearby power outlets. Our meetings are on a Saturday morning around 0830. Our meetings would be maybe two or three a year with the ability to have more if the need arises. If anyone knows of an organization that would be willing to donate a location for us, please let me know.

Your help on this is appreciated,

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Change of Information