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 month of February. Visible planets during the period:

• Mercury climbs higher and higher in the evening sky just after dusk and is at its greatest elongation on February 16th. It then drops back toward the horizon.
• Mars is low in the southwest after sunset until about mid-February, when it begins fading slowly from view.
• Jupiter is high and bright in the evening sky – at magnitude -2.4 it shines brighter than any other point of light in the sky.
• Saturn rises shortly before midnight by mid-February and appears highest in the south as morning twilight begins.

Calendar of celestial events for the coming week:

• Saturday, 2/16 – Mercury appears at its 2013 best in the evening sky.
• Sunday, 2/17 – First quarter moon.

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

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 – Areas in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas, plus a band across upper Wisconsin and Michigan.
• Flood watches, warnings and advisories – Counties throughout most of the lower South.
• High wind watches, warnings and advisories – Southern California, the lower Colorado River corridor, and the northern Great Plains.

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

In Memoriam

On February 14, 1940, Frank “Boss” Pinkley, 59, superintendent of Casa Grande NM, died of heart failure as he finished the keynote speech at the opening of the first session of a custodian training course.

On February 14, 2000, Dorie Lent, a budget analyst at Harpers Ferry NHP, died of a heart attack while at work.

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

From The Morning Report Archives

Today’s incident from the Morning Report archives:

Denali NP&P – On the evening of April 23, 1989, rangers in Talkeetna received word that a Piper Super Cub that had been flying in the Ruth Gorge area was overdue and that an ELT signal had been picked up from the general area. Bad weather, however, precluded any immediate response. In the interim, the pilot of a commercial aircraft reported that he’d talked with the plane’s pilot, who said that he’d crashed near a small hut in Sheldon Amphitheater and that he and his two passengers – one of whom was seven months pregnant – were uninjured. The pilot also reported that he’d crashed due to a stall which occurred while he was trying to land on the glacier and investigate an SOS that one of his passengers had spotted in the snow near the hut. The SOS had been stamped in the snow by a climber whose partner had broken a femur or hip bone while attempting to climb an ice pillar on Mt. Johnson. The climber had descended avalanche-prone slopes to the hut in an attempt to get help; the pilot transmitted the information on the radio, the climber returned to his partner. Weather continued to prevent a rescue until the evening of April 26th, when an Army H-3 arrived at the scene and evacuated the injured climber and his partner. At the same time, a Chinook helicopter landed and picked up the victims of the plane crash.

Contact Information
Name: Bill Halainen, Editor