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Author Topic: The southwest US Monsoon begins  (Read 3796 times)
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Bill, KD0HG
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304-TH - Workin' it


« on: July 11, 2007, 11:53:08 AM »

After a month of blistering heat, the western monsoon has begun thanks to a moisture plume coming up from Old Mexico.

Attached are some pix of the storm that blew up over the Boulder foothills around 10 PM last evening, dumping up to 1" hail, torrential downpours and impressive cloud to cloud lightning inside the cumulus in an otherwise clear sky.

This is going to be almost a daily occurrence around here for the next month.

Nothing makes us broadcast engineers more nervous than this sort of WX. LOL.
Channel 20 in Denver lost their signal at the height of the storm, my stations emerged unscathed (so far).



* 14_Brighton_lightning.jpg (13.9 KB, 400x300 - viewed 381 times.)

* cloud-cloud_lightning.jpg (12.58 KB, 400x266 - viewed 405 times.)
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Rick K5IAR
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« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2007, 12:35:39 PM »

Great pictures, Bill!  Be sure your gaps are set right...
Rick/K5IAR
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k4kyv
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Don
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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2007, 02:16:02 PM »

As I recall, Colorado is one of the most active lightning hot spots in N America, right up there with central Florida.  I suppose that's where the cool, dry mountain air flows down the eastern side of the Rockies and butts head with the warm humid air from the Gulf.

When I'm away, I routinely disconnect everything connected to the computer and the radio equipment.  Even with everything disconnected, I still sometimes get damage when there is a nearby hit.

One solution I have often thought of would be to rig up a motor-generator, with the units physically located several feet apart and coupled together with an insulated shaft, for all my electronic stuff (except the big transmitters of course).  The computer would be protected using a wireless router or fibre-optic link.  Of course, the radio antennas would still have to be disconnected.

The computer and landline telephone are essentially sitting ducks, connected to a dipole antenna - one leg is the  power line and the other is the phone line or internet cable.  I have never had an answering machine to last more than a  year or two before it gets blasted away.   Cordless extensions have averaged about the same, although the one I have now has made it for 3 years so far.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
Licensed since 1959 and not happy to be back on AM...    Never got off AM in the first place.

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wa1knx
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« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2007, 07:32:05 PM »

i wish the monsoons would come here, and cool us down in az. at least have
a change in the tx om!
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am forever!
flintstone mop
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« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2007, 09:58:38 PM »

Hi Dean,
I thought the monsoons were happening in AZ, now?
It gets really nasty. Hot and gross humid during the day. And the night only cools down to 85 or so. Those water cooler aircons don't work so well in the high humidity.
You need that goold ole fashioned FREON or R134.
Fred
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Fred KC4MOP
Bill, KD0HG
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304-TH - Workin' it


« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2007, 10:47:53 PM »

SHEESH!

--------------------
   
Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods during storms

By LINDA A. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
Published July 11, 2007, 4:14 PM CDT

A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires.

Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn.

Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms.

Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Mass., who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones. They are described on his Web site, www.struckbylightning.org.

Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.

"It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago.

When lightning jumps from a nearby object to a person, it often flashes over the skin. But metal in electronic devices -- or metal jewelry or coins in a pocket -- can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage.

A spokeswoman for Apple Inc., the maker of iPods, declined to comment. Packaging for iPods and some other music players do include warnings against using them in the rain.

Lightning strikes can occur even if a storm is many miles away, so lightning safety experts have been pushing the slogan "When thunder roars, go indoors," said Cooper.

Jason Bunch, 18, says it wasn't even raining last July, but there was a storm off in the distance. Lightning struck a nearby tree, shot off and hit him.

Bunch, who was listening to Metallica while mowing the grass at his home in Castle Rock, Colo., still has mild hearing damage in both ears, despite two reconstructive surgeries to repair ruptured eardrums. He had burns from the earphone wires on the sides of his face, a nasty burn on his hip where the iPod had been in a pocket and "a bad line up the side of my body," even though the iPod cord was outside his shirt.

"It was a real miracle" he survived, said his mother, Kelly Risheill.

The Canadian jogger suffered worse injuries, according to a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The man, a 39-year-old dentist from the Vancouver area, was listening to an iPod while jogging in a thunderstorm when, according to witnesses, lightning hit a tree a couple of feet away and jumped to his body. The strike threw the man about eight feet and caused second-degree burns on his chest and left leg.

The electric current left red burn lines running from where the iPod had been strapped to his chest up the sides of his neck. It ruptured both ear drums, dislocated tiny ear bones that transmit sound waves, and broke the man's jaw in four places, said Dr. Eric Heffernan, an imaging specialist at Vancouver General Hospital.

The injury happened two summers ago and despite treatment, the man still has less than 50 percent of normal hearing on each side, must wear hearing aids and can't hear high-pitched sounds.

"He's a part-time musician, so that's kind of messed up his hobby as well," Heffernan said.

Like the Colorado teen, the Canadian patient, who declined to be interviewed or identified, has no memory of the lightning strike.

In another case a few years ago, electric current from a lightning strike ran through a man's pager, burning both him and his girlfriend who was leaning against him, said Dr. Vince Mosesso, an emergency doctor at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Eardrum ruptures are considered the most common ear injury in lightning-strike victims, occurring in 5 percent to 50 percent of patients, according to various estimates -- whether or not an electronic device is involved. A broken jaw is rare, doctors say.

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