[californiadisasters] North Ops News & Notes Update (3/08/12-10AM)

Date	Time	News and Notes
03/08/2012	1000	NOAA's National Space Weather Prediction Center reports that that the sun's coronal mass ejection that started to hit the earth at 0234 PST has not yet affected satellite, radio, or power tranmissions. Although today's storm is classified as an S3 (strong) Solar Storm, the orientation of the magnetic field has been opposite of what is needed to produce the strongest storms. That will change thoughout the day, however, and Geomagnetic Storm levels will possibly hit G3 (strong) levels. For Fire Management personnel, a strong Geomagentic and/or Solar Storm could affect radio transmission and lead to GPS errors, and might negatively affect suppression efforts.
03/08/2012	0730	Today's Weather Story from the the National Weather Service's Sacramento WFO forecasts that today's Temperatures will be continue to be higher than normal through Friday, although they are predicting we will have a change in the jet stream beginning Sunday, which could bring a wet pattern next week.
03/08/2012	0715	Today's Drought Monitor product for California remains virtually unchanged from last week, although 3% more of the state has moved from "Abnormally Dry" into the "Moderate" short-term drought category. Even with last week's storms, 4.39% of the state remains "Normal", 20.37% is "Abnormally Dry", 59.22% is classified as "Moderate", and 16.02% is classified as having "Severe" short-term drought conditions.
03/06/2012	0730	The Beale AFB Weather Radar, which is operated by the National Weather Service in Sacramento and covers much of the central portion of our GACC, will be begin upgrading to dual-polarization capabilities starting tomorrow, March 7. For the fire management community, the ability to measure both the horizontal and vertical polarized radar pulses will mean better forecasting of thunderstorm intensity, total precipitation values, classification of precipitation type, identification of snow levels in higher terrain, and mitigating non-weather echoes (such as birds). The Beale AFB radar is expected to be offline from March 7-20. For more information, visit http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto/stodualpol.php .

Source: http://gacc.nifc.gov/oncc/predictive/intelligence/news_notes/index.htm

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