Trip to National Weather Service & NASA Thursday, June 12, 2014 - by Claude Cox and Mike Kees Nineteen Explorers boarded the County bus at Memorial City Mall on Thursday, June 12th for the day s planned outing. First stop: The National Weather Service office located in League City, Texas. A routine drive to these offices followed where the group was joined by 2 additional Explorers who traveled by private auto. Total Explorers equaled 21 - just over the County s minimum requirement to book a bus. (Note: Please help us keep these fun outings [and free transportation!] a part of our Club s offerings by signing up for all the trips you can - and then actually joining the group on trip day!) The group was greeted at the Weather Service by metrologist (and our host for the day), Phil Kuhn. Phil gave us a tour of the part of the building they occupy (the Galveston County Emergency Management District is also housed there) and showing us their command center. As you can imagine, lots of computers and colorful displays dominate this room along with various employees monitoring a wide variety of data being constantly collected and updated to their various systems and included in their many data bases. It became apparent that a major in math might be an appropriate course study if one chooses this line of work. National Weather Service Building in League City Texas Phil told us that they are one of 123 Service Centers scattered throughout the U. S., all subdivided within 6 national regions. This office is part of the Southern Region, one of 32 sites making up this subset. The National Weather Service is also a member of the World Metrological Association. Among other things, this group (the World Group) decides on the annual names associated with tropical storms and hurricanes. Once a storm is assigned a name, that name is not used again. The building has all sorts of redundancies built in as well as having its vital operations centers located on the upper floors. Two back up generator systems are in place. About 20 employees work at the site in round the clock shifts when weather activity demands it. They work 12 hour shifts 24 hours a day until the crisis dissipates. There are overnight sleeping and food accommodations for when this occurs. The center works closely with radio and TV outlets in the region to disseminate information to the public as needed. Also, the center accepts and
encourages reports from the general public on localized weather activity (hail, local flooding, tornado sightings, etc.). In addition to what we all expect to hear from these folks, they also provide similar coverage for both marine and aviation interests - think wind and cloud cover. Explorers learn about the Weather Service's Command Center We learned that Hurricane tracking planes are dispatched out of either Miami or Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, all under the direction of the U. S. Air Force. Finally, for those of us not meteorologically inclined, we learned that when the dew point and the ambient temperature are equal, fog and/or low clouds are imminent.
Next stop: The Outrigger Restaurant in Seabrook located literally under the Hwy. 146 bridge that spans the mouth of Clear Creek where it joins Galveston Bay. View of the Hwy. 146 bridge looking south View of the Kemah Boardwalk from the Seabrook side of the Clear Lake Channel Two views of Clear Lake from under the Hwy. 146 bridge Following our feast at Outrigger s, the group stopped at Rose s Seafood in Seabrook which is one of many sellers of fresh seafood in the area. Some Explorers bought shrimp, crab meat, catfish filets, etc., that were packaged and packed on ice for the trip home. It is tough to grocery shop on a full stomach. Our final stop for the day was at NASA s rocket display in Clear Lake where we viewed the progress related to repainting of the mock shuttle and the setup of the Boeing 747 that shuttled the returning space shuttles to the launch pads in Florida. As you can see from our group picture, work on the plane is progressing; however, the jet engines are yet to be reinstalled. The finished display will include Houston s life-size model of the space shuttle anchored on top of the plane in the same fashion the real space shuttles were transported. These changes are greatly enhancing the exhibits at NASA. Once completed (in 2015) there will be an external stair and elevator system that will allow visitors to enter both vehicles for an up close and one-of-a-kind experience.
Tail section of the Shuttle Mock Up being readied for public display Explorer Bob Pruessner getting an up close and personal view of the reconstruction Explorers with the NASA 747 reconstruction as a backdrop
We finished the day earlier than usual by arriving back at our point of departure parking lot before 2 PM. That provided each of us an opportunity to get a jump on returning to our homes prior to the big surge of Houston weekday traffic. We are thankful to Club Member Tom Broughton for the array of pictures he made and provided to us helping to document this trip. Also, please remember the need to sign up for all our trips if you possibly can. Scrambling for participants at the last minute is tough duty. We need a guaranteed minimum of 15 passengers to obtain the use of a County bus.