Do I Need a Lawyer to Donate Blood?

I like to donate blood. I feel good about potentially helping another person in need. It takes a little bit of my time every couple of months, but it's a good thing to do and you get a mini health screening. They check your pulse and blood pressure and temperature right there and then your blood gets checked for many other things at the lab. My mother's first husband died in 1956 of leukemia. He found out he had leukemia after a blood donation. They contacted him. Unfortunately in 1956, leukemia had a much higher fatality rate than today.

On Monday, I went to the Frederick, Maryland Donor Center that is run by the Red Cross. I had never been there before. I've donated a pint in as little as 45 minutes to as much as 2 hours. It's not the actually donating that takes time. I usually fill the bag up in about 7 minutes. But, it's all the procedural stuff that one must go through. And if there are people waiting already, you then have to wait for them. But it's a good thing to do, so you wait, patiently. Many people bring a book or magazine to pass the time.

I meet with one of the phlebotomists for the patient interview. We go in a little booth for "privacy" and then the questions begin. Some rather personal questions about where you have been, what you do and who you do it with. Since they are going to give your blood to another person, it's important information. If you have some lifestyle practices that could mean your blood may be tainted, the Red Cross wants to know, let me correct that, NEEDS to know.

After the questions, I then have to sign a few consent forms. One is for a test that is new and the other is from the State Of Maryland to test for HIV. I generally don't sign forms without first having my lawyer friend look at them, but I figure that it's probably alright. I mean, after all, I'm donating blood. My blood might actually save a life or two. If I can't trust the Red Cross, then we have some really big issues here.

The donation goes smoothly for me and I have a few cookies and water when I'm done. (If you haven't donated before, they have snacks and drinks for you when you're finished.) The whole process took about an hour. This was the 4th time I donated this year and I hope to get a 5th donation in before the year is out. I hope you'll join me.

One more item about the Red Cross. The Southern Maryland chapter of the Red Cross is holding their annual golf/auction fund raiser on September 21st. Call Mike Zabko - Chief Executive Officer of Southern Maryland chapter of the Red Cross at 301-934-2066.

Thunderstorms and Football

Saturday night August 25 and I'm filling in for the vacationing Tony Pann. It seems that every time Tony takes off, there is some major weather event. One time this winter, we had heavy snow one Sunday morning and I ended up working from 6 AM until Midnight.

This Saturday night, the Redskins were playing the Ravens at FedEx field and WUSA was carrying the game. We aired a Redskins pregame show that was supposed to go on from 7:30 to 8:00 PM. AS we are getting ready to air, a tremendous thunderstorm hits FedEx Field. Our on-field show was quickly moved to an interior location as stadium officials, wisely, evacuated everyone out of the bowl and under cover of the stadium. With the storm roaring outside, and lightning everywhere, the 8:00 start time was initially pushed back about 15 minutes.

But the storm continued and the delays grew. Initially, we would have finished our pre-game show at 8:00 PM and then go to the Redskins broadcast. But, the storm caused havoc at the stadium and we ended up filling an extra hour.

Brett Haber and Sarah Walsh did a great job at FedEx Field grabbing players and holding impromptu interviews. In the studio I was giving weather updates and tossing it around with Levan Reid. Levan's a great guy and a fellow Long Islander, so it was a pleasure having him in the trenches with me.

We've been crying about drought all summer. This week we've had over 3 inches in spots and the US Drought Monitor showed a much smaller area of severe drought. Now, moderate drought is the primary area and the trend is positive.

It's almost midnight and we're now in another lightning delay. If they play the second half, which is just over 3 minutes old. I figure we'll be on between 1:30 and 2 :00 A.M.

Thanks a lot Tony Pann!

Dean Makes Landfall

Hurricane Dean was that rare Category 5 storm when it made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday morning. Sustained winds were 165 mph with gusts even higher. It had the 3rd lowest pressure of a land falling hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin.

Yet, it wasn't as deadly as other Category 5 storms in the past. There are a few reasons for that. The storm, while a killer in Jamaica and Hispaniola, stayed just off the south coast of Jamaica and offshore of Hispaniola. When it did come ashore in Mexico, it missed the heavily developed tourist areas on Cancun and Cozumel. The areas north of Chetumal are lightly populated and Mexican authorities warnings were well listened to.

Flooding rains inland is also another concern with tropical systems, but Dean moved across the Yucatan in about 12 hours, and that really cut down on rain totals. Unfortunately, Dean may bring life threatening floods to Mexico as Dean dies in the mountains.

Hurricane Dean and some Hurricane Basics

With Dean getting ready to pummel Jamaica, I thought I'd blog a little about hurricanes, the most awesome and destructive storms on earth. Katrina, Camille, Andrew, Gloria, and Hugo are just a few of the many names of hurricanes that have been retired. (Here's a more complete list.)

This image of Dean is from Sunday morning as it was headed toward Jamaica.

wusa9.com's tropical weather section

With winds up to 150 mph on Saturday and landfalls in Jamaica and the Yucatan expected, Dean will likely make the list of retired names. This whole naming thing started in the 1950s as a way to more easily identify storms. Before 1953, military names like Able, Baker and Charlie were used. The National Hurricane Center's website has a list of all the different names used around the world and a more thorough explanation here.

Classification of names is done in categories from 1 to 5 with the rank being proportional to wind speed and destructive ability. The Saffir-Simpson Scale is where the categories originate from. Hurricane Andrew was a Category 5 storm when it made landfall in 1992 in south Florida while Katrina was actually only a Category 3. It had been a Category 5 storm in the Gulf Of Mexico, but weakened some before landfall. Had the levees not failed, due to improper construction, New Orleans would have been repaired within weeks. We're now going on 2 years and New Orleans will take many more years to recover, and that's assuming that there are no more hurricanes that come close.

When I do talks, I like to remind people that Katrina actually missed New Orleans. The brunt of the storm was in Plaquemines parish and the Mississippi Gulf coast. New Orleans was just brushed by Katrina. Had Katrina hit directly, it would have been an ever greater calamity.

While I am awed by the power and majesty of the strength of large hurricanes, I also feel for the inhabitants of the areas that these storms will strike. Lives will be lost. Property will be destroyed and the survivors will have hardships beyond what most of us can even imagine.

This week, when you see the coverage on television or read about it, please think about making a donation to the Red Cross or Salvation Army or any of your favorite charities that will be helping out after the storm.

Drought Update

Once again we're running rainfall deficits for the month. Through August 15th, National Airport was 1.24" below normal for August, 4.25" below normal since June 1st and 6.49" since January 1st.

The good news here is that we will see several chances for showers and thunderstorms through the middle of next week and some cooler temperatures. Also, September isn't that far away, so the trend for cooler weather will help. And, the tropics are heating up, so we should get some better rainfall from tropical moisture that makes it in our direction. Check the US Drought Monitor for the latest drought status reports.

NOAA, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently e-mailed their press release on July Weather highlights. Here it is:

RECORD WARMTH IN WESTERN U.S. IN JULY, DROUGHT
SEVERITY WORSENED, GLOBAL TEMPERATURE 7th WARMEST FOR JULY

July 2007 brought record and near-record warmth to the western United States, while much of the eastern and southern U.S. experienced cooler-than-average temperatures, according to
scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Below-average rainfall,
combined with scorching temperatures, helped put 46 percent of the contiguous U.S. in some stage of drought by the end of July.

The global average temperature was the seventh warmest on record for July, and the presence of cooler-than-average waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific reflected the possible development of a La Niña episode.

U.S. Temperature Highlights
For the contiguous United States, July 2007 was
the 15th warmest July since records began in 1895. The monthly mean temperature was 1.4° F
(0.8° C) above the 20th century average of 74.3° F (23.5° C).

Twenty states from the eastern seaboard to the Midwest and southern Plains were cooler than
average for the month. Florida was the only state warmer-than-average east of the Mississippi.

The persistent atmospheric pattern that brought cooler-than-average temperatures to the East
contributed to record and near-record warmth in the West. It was the warmest July on record in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Boise, Idaho's average temperature of 98.6° F (37° C) was more than 9° F (5° C) above average, and made July 2007 its warmest month ever. There were 11 days of triple digit temperatures in Missoula, Mont., almost double the previous record of 6 days for the month.

The cooler-than-average July temperatures in the heavily populated eastern U.S. helped push down residential energy needs for the nation as a whole. Using the Residential Energy Demand
Temperature Index (REDTI - an index developed at NOAA to relate energy usage to climate), the nation's residential energy demand was approximately 4 percent lower than what would
have occurred under average climate conditions for the month.

U.S. Precipitation Highlights
The record warmth and drier-than-average conditions in the northern Rockies led to rapidly
worsening drought conditions and helped give the western wildfire season an early and extremely active start. By early August more than 5 million acres had burned in the contiguous U.S, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Drought conditions worsened in parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains, Midwest, and
mid-Atlantic. At the end of July, 46 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate-to-exceptional drought, an increase of 12 percent since June. Eighty percent of the
Southeast was in drought, with the most severe drought in the nation concentrated in the northern half of Alabama.

July precipitation was near average for the contiguous U.S., but there were sharp contrasts
between areas that received above average rainfall and other areas that were drier than average. It was the third wettest July on record in Texas and Louisiana, the second wettest for the region that includes four neighboring states. The Northeast was also wetter than average along with six western states: Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and California.

Drier-than-average conditions stretched from parts of the mid-Atlantic and Southeast to the
Midwest and northern Plains. Rainfall was also below average in Montana, Idaho and Nevada.

Rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Cosme eased dry conditions on the eastern end of the
Big Island of Hawaii, but moderate-to-severe drought continued to affect several of the Hawaiian Islands at the end of July.

Weather Watcher Stanley Rossen and the Heat of 8/8/07

Last week was hot and I devote the rest of this entry to Stanley Rossen, an avid weather watcher. This is his research into the record heat of last week. Thanks Stanley!



Hello all (if you haven't melted), While stuck in my "office" for much of the post obs. overnight and much of the day yesterday, I was able to research temperature records for my home station - Glenmont (1NNE),Md., and the three major Airport stations: DCA, IAD, & BWI from Wed. 8/8. I did not have all the material with me and the time to do the detailed research of Baltimore City records, although it is possible that both the Max. and min. temps. set August records by 1°F.

I am not discussing any daily records in this e-mail as all the stations listed above set both high Max. and high min. records for the date. What I am discussing below the charts are monthly and all-time records. All the publicity concerning the temps for the day were for the high temps. But with the possible exception mentioned above, none of the major Airports even tied a monthly Max. temp. record. DCA didn't set or tie an August min. temp.or daily aver. temp. either. The suburban Airports did.

As may be obvious, I don't pay any attention to the official Baltimore temperature records as the only similarity in between the City Office and BWI (the City data before 7/23/50 is combined with BWI data from that date on to form the records) is that they are both in Maryland. It makes just as much sense to me to combine Salisbury and Oakland records or even Miami, FL and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN records. City and suburban temperatures do not follow the same patterns or characteristics.

From my more than 30 years of research I believe that the published Custom House and Science Center temperatures are totally legitimate and should be used with the pre-BWI data to form a long term City record data set and that the BWI data should stand separately. That is how I treat those station's records. Unlike Baltimore, National Airport was close enough to Washington's City Office to be combined.

I am listing below all the Maximum, minimum, and daily Average temps. (Max/min/Aver) that I have collected for 8/8/07. The first data set is from the 14 METAR stations within 50 miles of Washington that I access daily. The second set is a combination of official and unofficial stations that I have collected. This includes data from some of your own home stations. If you find any errors, please let me know. Also feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone else who might be interested.

METARS
KADW Andrews AFB, MD 100°/79°/89.5°
KBWI Balt.-Wash. Int. AP, MD 102°/80°/91.0°
KCGS College Park, MD AP 100°/81°/90.5°
KDAA Ft. Belvoir, VA 102°/75°/88.5°
KDCA Wash. National AP, DC 102°/80°/91.0°
KDMH MD Science Center (Balt.), MD 106°/85°/95.5°
KFDK Frederick, MD AP 97°/75°/86.0°
KFME Tipton AP (Ft. Meade), MD 102°/75°/88.5°
KHEF Manassas, VA AP 102°/73°/87.5°
KIAD Wash.-Dulles Int. AP, VA 101°/79°/90.0°
KJYO Leesburg, VA AP 100°/79°/89.5°
KMTN Martin Field (Middle River), MD 102°/82°/92.0°
KNAK Naval Acad. (Annapolis), MD 100°/81°/90.5°
KNYG Quantico, VA 104°/78°/91.0°

OTHERS
Annandale, VA 99°/78°/88.5°
Beltsville USDA Sta.#2, MD 102°/77°/89.5°
Beltsville USDA Sta.#5, MD 101°/75°/88.0°
Clarksburg (2ENE), MD 97°/78°/87.5°
Dalecarlia Reservoir, DC 104°/73°/88.5°
Damascus, MD 96°/73°/84.5°
Gaithersburg (2WNW), MD 98°/78°/88.0°
Glenmont (1NNE), MD 101°/77°/89.0°
Millers (4NE), MD 95°/75°/85.0°
Montgomery Village, MD 101°/81°/91.0°
National Arboretum, DC 101°/79°/90.0°
Oxon Hill, MD 102°/80°/91.0°
Pasadena (3SW), MD 102°/80°/91.0°
Vienna-Dunn Loring, VA 95°/76°/85.5°

At Dulles AP (daily records began late in the evening of 11/16/62), both the min. temp. of 79° and the daily aver. temp. of 90.0°easily broke all-time records. The old all-time record daily average temp. was also the old August record. That was 88.5° (102°/75°) set on8/15/88. The previous record for highest min. temp. did not occur in August. The old August record was 76° from 8/13/88, 8/5/89, & 8/23/02. The old all-time record was 77° on 7/21/87 & 9/3/93.

BWI (records began 7/23/50) also broke its station record for daily average temp. with its 91.0° figure. That edged the old record of 90.5° (102°/79°) from 7/16/95. The previous August record of 89.0°occurred three times and all of them were last year: 8/1/06 (100°/78°),8/2/06 (99°/79°), & 8/3/06 (100°/78°). The old August record for highest min. temp. was also last year's 79° on 8/2/06. This was only the third time that BWI has held an 80° min. temp. for a full 24 hour day. The other two times were on 6/26/52 & 7/22/72.

I have noticed that there have been a number of complaints about the Frederick Max. temps. in recent years. I have no idea about how and where the instruments are exposed at the Airport. What I have noticed, as you see above, is that they have not been consistently high during the summer months; and that it is more common during the "off" months. At my home suburban valley location with my standard mercury-in-glass maximum thermometer and alcohol-in-glass minimum thermometer on a Townsend support in my Cotton-region shelter, I have had higher max. temps. than the three major Airports with some frequency during Spring months. This does not hold during the summer and fall here.

At my home here 1 mile NNE of the adjacent Glenmont Police and Fire Stations (I'm equidistant from three different Post Offices) where daily records began on 6/26/77, my 101° Max. temp. was the first reading to reach the Century mark (and 9th time overall) since I set my all-time record of 103° on 7/31/99. It ties 7/16/88, 8/15/88, 8/16/97, & 7/6/99 for the second hottest day here (which obviously includes tying my August heat record). The only other dates to reach 100° here were 7/16/80,8/4/95, & 7/23/91. The min. temp. of 77° tied 7/19/91, 9/3/93, & 8/3/06for warmest 24-hour minimum ever recorded here. By the way, I take my daily observations at 12:00 Midnight EST (0500Z) year round. That means it's at 1:00 A.M. EDT when we're on Daylight Time.

What these two records combined means is that my daily aver. temp. of 89.0° was the warmest on record here. The record it broke was a short lived one as it was from 8/3/06: 88.0° (99°/77°). I hope that you find all this information enlightening.

Stanley Rossen

P.S. Some of the individual station data that I used above can be found at the following websites:
Annandale: http://www.annandaleweather.com/
Beltsville: http://www.ba.ars.usda.gov/weather/ba-weather.html
Clarksburg: http://www.weather4caster.com/
Montgomery Village: http://mvweather.net/
Pasadena: http://www.thunderheadtech.com/
I post my own climate data under "Comments" at the following website:http://www.coolwx.com/userobs/ .

Homogenization of America

Greetings from Birmingham, Alabama!

I'm visiting my Mom and sister this week. Yes, another "Family Maintenance Tour". And we drive the 750 miles each way. My wife, Helaine, doesn't like to fly. There are some positives about driving. We get to see the country.

We stopped in Knoxville, TN, about 8 hours away, and caught 5 innings of a Knoxville Smokies game. The reason we left after 5 innings was because it was pretty hot and humid and I had become uncomfortably sticky. Nice ballpark though. I've stopped in Knoxville a few times and I like the city, you should visit if you get a chance.

From there, it's not quite a 4 hour drive to Birmingham, AL. My wife and I got to talking in the car about how everything is the same. Years ago, you'd take a road trip and you'd discover something new. I grew up on Long Island, so I remember when my family would drive down to Florida every summer to visit my grandparents. It was exciting to see "new" things. I used to be excited by Stuckeys because we didn't have them up north. We always bought a bag of pecans on the way home. My dad was a big fan on Aunt Sarah's Pancake house, although I was disappointed the last time I was in one, in Lexington, VA because they did not have REAL maple syrup.

But back to my point....the thrill of discovery is vanishing. Chains have taken over. I know that there is comfort in familiarity, but, as much as the family likes Cracker Barrel, I still prefer going a little out of the way for something local, something new to me. I love finding that "one of a kind" barbecue place or that restaurant with a view of the river that is killer. But how often do places like that exist off an interstate exit? Sometimes you just have to get off the interstate and look around.

About a year ago we were leaving Chattanooga and heading toward Birmingham. We took a detour. We went up Lookout Mountain, which was cool, and then we winded southwest down some 2 lane road. My son was complaining because he wanted to just get to Birmingham so that he could play with his cousins. We told him to relax, and enjoy the scenery. That didn't go over very well, until we stumbled upon Lookout Mountain Hang Gliding. Seeing someone jump off a cliff and float in the air was a captivating experience for a young man and as much as he begged his mother and me to go on a tandem ride with an instructor, we weren't allowing that, just yet.

This is my 16th trip to Birmingham since 2002 and I'm getting to know this place pretty well. Some of the "local" restaurants and attractions are very good. The bronze statue Vulcan stands over the city and there is a small but very interesting museum at the base of Vulcan which tells about the history of Birmingham. This used to be a "steel" town and of course, it played a big part in the advancement of Civil Rights in our country. I'll try to discover something new this week. (After 16 trips, it's getting hard.)

That's it for now. As much as I have proofread this entry, I'm sure my friend Mike Walter will find some mistake I have made in grammar or spelling and tell me about it.

Drought Update

Drought, it's an ugly word, and it's something that we're in the middle of right now. July ended with a deficit of 1.26" at National Airport, but more than 4" (4.05") at Charlottesville. Many of the deficits for 2007 range from 4.5" in Baltimore to 8.5" in Hagerstown.

Farmers are hurting with many crops severely damaged or even destroyed. Some areas, like Purcelville, VA and Mt. Airy, MD already have some watering restrictions in place and we're looking at some very hot and mainly dry weather to start the month of August.

I've been saying for weeks on my noon weather broadcasts that you really should be watering your plants and trees, especially if they are not well established. This type of weather can kill them.

There's a great resource for drought information. NOAA runs the US DROUGHT MONITOR. The images are updated on Thursdays and this is the latest image available when I was writing this blog.

As bad as it is here, you can see that areas of the south are much worse with exceptional drought conditions across parts of Alabama.

My sister lives outside of Birmingham and she tells me that they take 2 minute showers to conserve and there are severe financial penalties from the water company if they exceed a set usage allotment. And you thought we had it bad.

Across Maryland, the worst conditions are across Charles, St. Mary's and Calvert counties and that area has expanded into western Montgomery, western Frederick and southern Washington.

In Virginia, there are 2 areas of severe drought. One extends from the Northern neck up toward the DC suburbs of Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the other is in the southwestern part of the state.

All of these images can be clicked upon and you'll see the bigger version, but you can also go to the US DROUGHT MONITOR and check out the latest images.

This dry weather is also making for more heat. When there is moisture in the ground or in the air, it takes more energy to heat than when things are dry. The sun actually heats the ground and then the ground gives off heat to that tiny layer of air in contact with it. That air, then mixes with other air to spread out the heat.

When the ground is dry, it heats up that much faster and in turn heats the air that much faster. It's a vicious cycle that will persist for a while. We need some real rainfall on a regular basis to change things. In the meantime, water your plants and trees and conserve whenever possible.