Volume 55, Number 3 December 2011 From the Editor John Wasserman Mariners Weather Log ISSN 0025-3367 U.S. Department of Commerce Greetings and farewell shipmates and friends. Thank you once again for Jane Lubchenco Ph.D. picking up this issue of the Mariners Weather Log! Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere As you may have noticed, my salutation has changed. No, I am not National Weather Service leaving the VOS program, simply turning over the reins of the MWL Dr. John "Jack" L. Hayes to the new Operation Manager of the US VOS program. Paula Rychtar NOAA Assistant Administrator for (former New Orleans PMO) will be taking over the MWL duties after Weather Services this issue. (You can read her bio on page 10) I am sure that Paula will Editorial Supervisor do an exceptional job with the magazine as her creativity far exceeds John L. Wasserman mine! Feel free to contact Paula with any ideas for the magazine that Layout and Design you may have. ([email protected]) Leigh Ellis Well I couldn’t have picked a better issue for my final contribution. I am really happy with the articles that have been submitted for this issue Articles, Photographs, and Letters and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have. In addition to all should be sent to: the articles, as promised, this issue is “chock full o’ awards” for our Mr. John L Wasserman, Editorial Supervisor top performing ships. We here at the US VOS program love seeing the Mariners Weather Log increased participation! NDBC (W/OPS 51) Bldg. 3203 Stennis Space Center, MS 39529-6000 One item that I wanted to “pass the word” about. We are learning that Phone: (228) 688-1818 Fax: (228) 688-3923 we did a less than admirable job on letting the ships know about the E-Mail: [email protected] postage paid envelopes that some of the ships still have on board that were distributed by the PMOs. The issue with the envelopes is the US postal permits have expired and are no longer being honored by the Some Important Web Page Addresses: postal service. We ask that you please discontinue using these envelopes NOAA and dispose of them, for fear that they are not being delivered properly http://www.noaa.gov and ending up in “mail purgatory”. Please hold on to any archive National Weather Service http://www.weather.gov materials and they can be picked up from a PMO on your next port visit. The information is used for our archives and for the most part is not National Data Buoy Center http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov “time sensitive” AMVER Program http://www.amver.com Well that’s about enough of my ramblings and musings, I wish you all VOS Program Fair Winds and Following Seas. With that I will turn the MWL “conn” http://www.vos.noaa.gov over to Paula. Please enjoy this issue of the Mariners Weather Log. SEAS Program http://seas.amverseas.noaa.gov/ John seas/seasmain.html Mariners Weather Log http://www.vos.noaa.gov/mwl.shtml Marine Dissemination http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/home.htm U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/ December 2011 ~ Log 2011 December Weather Mariners See these Web pages for further links. c2 Right Whales . 2 Marine Debris . 7 Shipwreck: Anna C Minch . 9 US VOS Welcomes Aboard New Operations Manager . 10 Departments: Marine Weather Review Mean Circulation Highlights and Page 2 Climate Anomalies – May through August 2011 . 11 Marine Weather Review – North Atlantic Area January. through June 2011. 13 Marine Weather Review – North Pacifi c Area January through June 2011 . 27 Tropical Atlantic and Tropical East Pacifi c Areas May through August 2011 . 44 VOS Program VOS Program Awards . 49 VOS Program New Recruits: March 1 through June 30, 2011 . 57 VOS Cooperative Ship Report: January through June 2011 . 58 Points of Contact . 74 December 2011 ~ Mariners Weather Log Log Weather ~ Mariners 2011 December Page 7 1 Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule Helps Protect Endangered Species By Matt Ellis, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement Only man’s predation and exploitation of marine resources have ever threatened the survival of Earth’s largest living creatures: Whales. Hunting them for their oil, meat, and other products, humans decimated global whale populations before the 20th century, pushing many whale species to the brink of extinction. A moratorium on commercial whaling in 1935 and widespread protection offered by the United States’ Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection Acts in the 1970s Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule Helps Protect Endangered Species Species Endangered Protect Helps Rule Reduction Strike Ship Whale Right allowed most endangered whale populations the opportunity to rebuild and return to healthier numbers. “human-caused source of mortality for Just one fatality can be devastating to the endangered North Atlantic right the right whale population, and even Yet some, like the North Atlantic right whale.” more so when the victim is a female whale, are still struggling to survive. whale. The impact of a moving ship can cause Ship strikes threaten hemorrhaging, lacerations, broken NOAA estimates that a female right endangered right whales bones and other blunt force trauma that whale will need to give birth to four can severely debilitate or kill a large healthy calves over her lifetime to Less than 400 individual right whale. successfully replace herself within the whales are estimated to survive in population. Survivorship studies have the wild. North Atlantic right whales Right whales are deemed more shown that two of those four calves are endangered, and without proper susceptible to such encounters because will likely die before reaching sexual management of maritime activity they feed and breed near the coast maturity (at around 10 years), and of now and in the future, human actions and spend extended periods of time the remaining two, one will probably could very well lead to their premature close to the surface of the water, and be male. extinction. consequently, the dangerous bows and propellers of passing ships. Ship Strike Reduction Rule The scientists and organizations that seeks to slow ships study and protect these whales are A 2010 paper by NOAA scientists teaming up to guard right whales from appearing in the Journal of Experimental Although the small Atlantic population is endangerment in a number of ways. One Marine Biology and Ecology describes now showing annual growth, increasing of the greatest threats to right whales is ship strikes as “a significant threat to the by about 2 percent every year, almost a accidental collisions between ships and recovery of the [right whale] species,” third of all known right whale fatalities whales, which have contributed largely and estimates that nearly 40 percent of are still caused by ship collisions or to protected whale fatalities over the the 50 documented right whale deaths fishing gear entanglement, motivating years and a slowed recovery of the from 1986 to 2005 occurred due to ship scientists and agency officials to put in population. collisions. From 2003 to 2007, at least place a program to reduce these threats, two right whales were killed each year including restrictions on vessel speeds, In fact, NOAA Fisheries Service reports by ships. implemented in December 2008. December 2011 ~ Log Weather Mariners 2011 December that collisions with ships are the leading 2 This is not the first programdevised Race Point and the Great South Channel Morehead City, Norfolk and the Species Endangered Protect Helps Rule Reduction Strike Ship Whale Right to reduce the risk of ship strikes. The in the Northeast, and extend southward Delaware Bay to protect migratory Mandatory Ship Reporting System, down the East Coast, including Block routes. introduced in 1999, was intended to Island Sound and most major Atlantic gather information about ship locations ports to Jacksonville, Florida. Maps of Right whales may occur unexpectedly and relay sighting data of local right these areas and a compliance guide are outside Seasonal Management Areas, whales to those ships, so that they may available at www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/ so NOAA also establishes temporary avoid the whales (www.nmfs.noaa.gov/ shipstrike. zones, called Dynamic Management pr/shipstrike/msr/). Areas, which are created when From January 1 through May 15, Cape whales are a sighted in a location State and federal regulations also restrict Cod Bay is a designated Seasonal outside the boundaries of the Seasonal close contact with whales, mandating Management Area. Off Race Point Management Areas. Mariners who that all vessels must stay at least 500 becomes a Seasonal Management voluntarily pass through either yards away from a sighted whale in U.S. Area from March 1 to April 30, and the management area are requested to waters. Aerial surveys of whales have Great South Channel is established as a observe a 10 knot speed limit or route been used for years to provide right Seasonal Management Area from April around the area. whale locations to transiting vessels, 1 to July 31. and recommended routes have been In addition recommended shipping established in various locations to limit Waters along the southeastern coast routes have been established in waters the concurrence of whales and ships. of the United States, extending from around New England and Jacksonville, Brunswick, Georgia, to Port Canaveral, directing ships to waters historically Although helpful, these actions were Florida, are the main breeding and shown to be less populated by right ineffective in reducing ship strikes to nursery grounds of the North Atlantic whales. Working with the International appropriate levels, and the need came right whale.