Fred Sandsmark's Blog

Tonight's NOVA scienceNOW includes a segment on the THEMIS project -- the study of the aurora borealis, on which my friend John McDonald works.

Check here for an earlier post on THEMIS with more links.

Labels: friends, science, TV, weather

I missed the opportunity last fall to do much in the garden -- my attention was elsewhere -- so I'm now playing catchup in winter. The endless rain hasn't helped, but I got out to do some cleanup today and found a few Supersweet 100 tomatoes lingering on an overwintered plant, as well as the first daffodils opening up. I also pulled some carrots.





At this point Cousin Jim in Minnesota is checking the date on this post. Yes, on February 3, I found some edible tomatoes outdoors. They're not going to win any beauty or flavor contests, but it's fun to have them.

Labels: food, garden, weather

Surreal story in today's New York Times about an entrepreneur in the United Arab Emirates who's so smitten with the French city of Lyon that he wants to build a small version of Lyon in Dubai. Among the points of interest:

The Paul Bocuse Institute is hoping to set up a branch to train young chefs and restaurant and hotel managers. The Museum of Textiles is poised to open a silk museum and lend select treasures from its vast silk collection. Lyon’s soccer team has signed up to operate a center to train a Dubai team. Research is under way to cool outdoor spaces naturally to make strolling bearable during dust storms and 105-degree heat. [Emphasis mine.]

I, too, love Lyon. It's the home of our dear friend Hélène and the setting of many wonderful memories. It's a superb walking town -- the Castro Valley Boulevardier would appreciate it. Its festival of lights is breathtaking -- do a Google image search for "Lyon 'Fete des Lumieres'" to see some examples. Lyon has the finest farmer's market in France, which says a lot. (Interpol headquarters is there, too -- what could be cooler than that?)

But loving Lyon is one thing; trying to re-create it under a dome in the Middle East is something else entirely.

Labels: food, France, friends, science, weather

An item on KTVU news last night about San Anselmo's flood warning system reminded me of one of the first freelance articles I sold, back in lae 1997, to California Computer News (CCN). It ran in the January 1998 edition of the free monthly, and I'm republishing it here. At the end I've added some comments.

Roseville is ALERT to Flood Danger

The ALERT system uses cable television and high-end technology to keep Roseville residents apprised of potential flooding

In recent years, Roseville residents have switched on their televisions during winter storms to see newscasters (and, on occasion, the President) wading through their town, inspecting flooded homes. Now residents don't have to get their news through commercial television. They can simply flip the channel to a local cable station to see exactly what the city's swollen creeks are doing at that very moment.

Roseville has added a sophisticated, complex flood alert system. A network of remote gauges measures creek flow and rainfall, and forwards the data to a central computer. There it is compiled, analyzed and (if the water levels warrant it) broadcast in real time over cable television. Another computer can telephone the residents of threatened neighborhoods and advise them to evacuate.

Most cities in the Sacramento Valley have a flood-monitoring system, but its television broadcast ability sets the Roseville system apart from others in the area and in the nation. "This feature is found in few, if any, other flood warning systems across the country," said Rob Nelson, key operator for the Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT).

The system provides about three hours of warning when a creek is about to flood. This aggressive program requires a collection of special equipment. Fourteen streamflow monitors are strategically placed on the seven creeks in the Upper Dry Creek Drainage Basin, an 80-square-mile area that feeds the city's creeks. These remote monitors track the height of the creeks and transmit the information via radio to the ALERT center at the Roseville Corporation Yard. The streamflow monitors are supplemented by 19 digital rain gauges, which also communicate with the center via radio. Eighty percent of the water that flows through Roseville comes from rain that falls outside of the city limits, so the monitors are as far away as Newcastle.

CENTRAL HUB

Roseville's ALERT center is a small, windowless room crammed with computer gear. The sophisticated system runs on relatively modest hardware, including a 486DX33 which features software developed by the National Weather Service (NWS) for recording the data from the remote sensors. A 133 Mhz Pentium analyzes the same data. It runs proprietary software developed by Novalynx of Rancho Cordova (www.novalynx.com), a company that specializes in meteorological instruments and software. This computer converts the numbers to graphics that appear on cable TV and helps Nelson to predict future creek levels.

The QNX operating system makes these humble computers capable of processing a deluge of information. QNX (www.qnx.com) is a very fast micro-kernel OS that bills itself as "the leading real time operating system for PCs." QNX is used in a variety of industrial and emergency situations where real-time processing and high reliability are essential.

The third computer, a 200 Mhz Pentium Pro running Windows NT Server, isn't on QNX. Through an ISDN modem connected to the Internet, this computer receives radar and satellite imagery which is used for predicting and tracking weather. These aren't the same weather maps the public can view on the Web -- those are delayed at least a half hour, while Roseville's are updated every six minutes. The satellite data comes from the Geostationary Operational Environment Satellites (GOES) operated by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

MUST-SEE TV

The ALERT center sorts the information and—when the city's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at the main fire station deems it necessary—the information is transmitted via modem to the city's cable TV channel. A repeating automatic television program—which gives real-time data from the six most critical streamflow monitors—shows a six-hour history of creek levels and indicates via a color code whether the stream level is at a normal, alert, warning or critical stage.

At the alert stage, city staff are carefully monitoring creek levels and weather conditions. When the creek levels reach the warning stage, flooding is a possibility and residents are encouraged to take precautions to secure their property and personal safety. At the critical stage, flooding becomes imminent and residents are advised to evacuate.

As a side attraction, the television program runs when flooding isn't a threat. The city has found that residents like to observe the stream situation even when it's not an official emergency.

CALL OF THE WILD CREEK

The ALERT system doesn't rely solely on people to watch the television broadcast. Flood stages are communicated to all at-risk residents using an automatic telephone dialing system that matches floodplain maps with a database of telephone numbers. It can make 480 telephone calls an hour, and will soon be upgraded to make 1,000 calls an hour over 16 phone lines. A 233 Mhz Pentium runs "Teleminder" software by Decision Systems (www.decsys.com/decsys/tmcare.html). It calls at-risk homes and plays a recorded message describing the flood potential.

The city gets telephone numbers for the database from the local telephone company, so even unlisted numbers are called. The system is tested every autumn and is available for other emergencies in Roseville.

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Roseville's ALERT system has been evolving since a February 1986 storm soaked Roseville, flooding 209 buildings and causing $7.5 million in damage. Initially two monitoring systems only recorded stream levels, so the first improvements were to add radio transmitters to the gauges. Most of the remaining monitoring locations were installed by 1990.

The ALERT center began with just one 80386 computer processing NWS data. The second computer was added a few years later, and both have since been upgraded. The link to the cable station was installed over four years ago, and in 1993 the radar/GOES workstation was added. The city estimates the system's price tag at $500,000. But who cares about expense when you have such a comprehensive system that the World Meteorological Organization tours it as part of its biennial international training program.

The next upgrade of the QNS OS will use an X Windows motif that will allow ALERT data to be networked through the city's Hewlett-Packard mainframe directly to the EOC and the cable television station without using modems.

USE IT OR LOSE IT?

Like an insurance policy, Roseville's flood monitoring system was purchased with hopes that it would never have to be used. But the system has been engaged, on average, every year since it was created. "The potential for flooding is present during every rainy season," the city tells its residents.

Roseville does its best to keep the system idle. It has ambitious civil-engineering plans (costing up to $8.3 million in 1998) to keep the creeks in their banks. Perhaps Roseville residents will someday turn on their televisions during heavy rains to watch newscasters wade through other towns.

Ten years later, I'm pretty happy with the story. One exception: I can't believe I wrote "But who cares about expense when you have such a comprehensive system that the World Meteorological Organization tours it as part of its biennial international training program." I wonder if I actually did write it, or if it was added in. I can see that my sometimes-misplaced enthusiasm for bad-pun subheads and em-dashes was already at work.

CCN still exists, at least online. It was a Sacramento-area regional publication in the 1990s, and because I don't live there anymore I don't know if it's still published in hard copy. A lot of similar free regional computer publications have died. I had a good freelance run with the publication, writing dozens of articles including a handful of covers. Sadly, its story archives aren't online anymore.

I worked with two fine editors there, Michelle Gamble Risley and Justine Kavanaugh Brown. Michelle took a chance and hired me when I was a new freelancer with no clips, and for that I'm grateful. I'm not sure where Michelle or Justine are anymore, but I'd love to hear from them.

Labels: clips, technology, weather