The Hurricane Watch Net is closely monitoring the progress of Florence
Sunday, September 10, 2006 (9:30 a.m. EDT - 1330 UTC)
The Hurricane Watch Net plans to activate at 1:00 p.m. EDT - 1700 UTC Sunday afternoon on our net frequency of 14.325.00 MHz, and remain on frequency as long as the 20 meter band will allow.  We will reactivate Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. EDT - 1300 UTC and remain active for as long as needed.

As a reminder, the Hurricane Watch Net activates whenever a Hurricane is within 300 miles of projected landfall, or at the request of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL.  Our net frequency is 14.325.00 MHz USB.

Whenever the Hurricane Watch Net is not active, you can keep up to date with all of the latest information by visiting our website, www.hwn.org, as well as tuning in to 14.300.00 MHz.

As usual, during any net activation, we encourage all mariners and residents in and around affect area to please come to our net frequency of 14.325.00 MHz for all the latest information and for the purpose of providing reports of conditions in your area.  Please help to spread the word to people in the affected area while also requesting any available reporting stations in the area to please come to net our net frequency of 14.325.00 MHz with their observed and/or measured weather data.

Any update to this plan will be announced as necessary.

We will be requesting measured/observed ground truth data from the affected area.  Under direction of the National Hurricane Center, those may be solicited from specific locations and/or with specific criterion attached (such as people experiencing sustained winds in excess of 35 knots, or those with rapidly degrading conditions, etc.).  Temperature and dew point information is not needed.  We remind those reporting stations to "please" do not report to us the weather information reported by your local media.  We are interested ONLY in your personal observations, preferably measured by calibrated instrumentation.

Note: The above criteria may be changed without notice.

Throughout this event, we remind everyone that we are also available to provide backup communications facilities to official agencies such as Emergency Operations Centers and Red Cross officials in the affected area.  We will also be interested to collect and report significant damage assessment data back to FEMA officials stationed in the National Hurricane Center.

Please honor our request that you should not check in to the net unless specifically requested to do so.  We will attempt to handle all communications within the capabilities of our own members, and only when required assistance is needed will we ask for your help.

While our mission is specifically to provide storm related information into and out of the storm, please understand we are not involved in Health and Welfare traffic.  That traffic will be handled by the SATERN net on 14.265.00 MHz, whenever activated, as well as on their website of www.satern.org.  On the SATERN homepage, you will find a link for Health and Welfare Information.  Fill out that form and they will get back with you as soon as possible.  We will likely be reporting other emergency frequencies to be set up by local emergency management nets in the affected area.  Please monitor 14.325.00 MHz for that information as it is made available.

As a final reminder, please monitor this web site for storm related advisory updates, graphics displays, and other data made available from the National Hurricane Center.

Sincerely,
Mike Pilgrim - K5MP
Net Manager
Hurricane Watch Net