The Skies

Sun and Moon Data

To find sun and moon rising and setting times for your park or office, go to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day webpage.

Night Skies

An update on the moon, planets and night skies for the week of October 2nd through October 9th, extracted from a weekly summary prepared by the U.S. Naval Observatory:

• Moon – The moon is waning in the morning sky.
• Mars – Mars is near the stars that form the head of the constellation Scorpius.
• Jupiter – Jupiter rises in the evening sky before 10 p.m.
• Venus – The planet is bright in the eastern sky at dawn. It has a magnitude of – 4.1, bright enough to cast shadows in very dark locations when the moon isn’t around.

For more information on stars, planets and other night sky phenomena, go to “The Sky This Week” page at the U.S. Naval Observatory page at http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/tours-events/sky-this-week

The Weather

Rain is forecast for the Northeast and an area in the upper Midwest. Frost and freeze warnings have been posted from Tennessee to New York.

Watches and Warnings

The principal watches and warnings posted as of early this morning were as follows. Note that these change over the course of a day and represent only initial daily forecasts. Click on this link for a full-sized map showing these hazards:

• Winter storm watches, warnings and advisories – Central Montana.
• Frost and freeze watches, warnings and advisories – Southwest Oregon and northern California and a belt stretching from Tennessee to western New York.

For additional information on severe weather, go to the NOAA Storm Prediction Center at http://www.spc.noaa.gov/ .

Tropical Cyclones

Today’s reports from the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (western Pacific):

• Neither center is currently tracking any tropical cyclones.

For additional information on Atlantic and eastern Pacific tropical cyclones, go to the National Hurricane Center web page at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/. For information on western Pacific tropical cyclones, go to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center at http://www.usno.navy.mil/JTWC/.

This Day in NPS History

In The Parks

On October 9, 1908, in one of the nation's first efforts to demonstrate and test a stabilized road surface, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads completed more than two miles of a 14-foot-wide macadam road, known as the Object Lesson Road, through Cumberland Gap.  The site is now within Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, at the junction of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Click here for other park anniversary dates.

In Memoriam

On October 9, 1959, Harry Fleming, 62, a maintenance foreman at Devils Tower, died of a heart attack while pumping oil from a tar pond by a creek.

Click here for a full list of on-duty deaths.

From The Morning Report Archives

The 25th anniversary of the National Park Service Morning Report is being commemorated with the reprinting of incidents from the Morning Report archives:

Wrangell-St. Elias NP&P – Three men from Wasilla went rafting down the Gulkana River on June 20, 1988. While running the rapids at Canyon Falls, one of them fell off the raft, went over a four-foot-high waterfall, and was last seen floating down the river. The other two men searched for him for the rest of the day and spent the ensuing night in their camp. They rafted to the Sourdough takeout the next day and reported the incident. At the time of the report, a search was in progress by rangers and state troopers, but no sign of the missing man had been found.

Contact Information
Name: Bill Halainen, Editor