On Tuesday January 9th Clearfield County, as well as most of Pennsylvania, experienced a rather significant winter storm. Forecasts were calling for significant snowfall accumulations followed by wind and rain.

At the request of PEMA ACS officials, a state-wide alert was issued and all county ACS teams were placed on stand by status. Local county teams were requested to monitor weather conditions and report any significant developments to the PEMA ACS Net which operated at the top of the hour throughout the day. Local teams were to only report if they are reporting significant
snowfall, rain, flooding, and any communication emergencies. They were particularly interested in reports of snowfall amounts and any critical infrastructure issues.

The PEMA ACS Net opened operations at 0930 and continued throughout the day using HF frequencies as well as DMR and WinLink. The published HF net frequency did need to shift due to the South Coast Amateur Radio Net operating on the same frequency. PEMA ACS moved down 3 Khz and carried on without interference.

Although Clearfield County did receive significant snowfall, the PEMA HF Net carried reports of much worse conditions to the north of us. Several stations reported from Erie County where numerous trees were down and one tree fell into a supermarket in
the community of North East, Erie County. These reports provided an almost instant source of information to the PEMA ACS headquarters.

Multiple stations from Clearfield County provided reports to PEMA during this activation. Among them were Scott E3EOD who reported from Houtzdale via DMR and John N3SPW who reported from West Decatur via HF as well as WinLink.