Hello Mark, I can't say I'm interested right now but was given the assignment by my superiors to participate and register on this website and give them briefings/update as we go along. hopefully I'll develop an interest as we progress. Rafiq Al-kahlili California Department of Transportationm Freeway Operations rafiq_al-khalili@dot.ca.gov

Mark, I'm interested in participating in highway visibility discussions, especially fog and weather related crashes. Friday's (05/23/03) crash on Maryland 68 should generate lessons learned on the perception of fog related crashes. News sources quote the first crash as happening at 1:45 p.m. and the first weather alerts being issued at 3:45 p.m. Just south of Cuberland, MD, Virginia has invested in road lighting to assist motorists in low visibility. What has been the crash experience on that Virginia road in poor visibility? Central California has terrible crashes in foggy weather. CHP (California Highway Patrol) will convoy platoons of cars through foggy conditions. I have not seen any post crash investigations regarding the position of defroster controls. Or any post crash investigations of the cleanliness of the inside of the windshields or comments on the smoking habits of the dirver as a contributor to a film that would reduce visibility in certain lighting conditions. I am also interested in sun angle visibility issues and strobe lighting effects. The November 2002 fog related crashes in Los Angeles come to mind. I am retired. My active career was in aircraft navigation and contract technical issues for the US Navy. What did you have in mind for the website? I get the impression that no one knows about ignorance and no one cares about apathy. In other words, visibility is not an issue, it won't get funded, next~ I learned of your site from Bernie Wagenblast <<brwagenblast@comcast.net>>. Bernie manages a YahooGroups site <<transport-communications@yahoogroups.com>>. If you want more participation from Bernie's group, send him some press releases. Richard Easley also operates a site for IT discussion. Nebraska has a site for roundabouts. Ask them to cross post to visibility issues. How do you envision the Community of Practice? As an open discussion site, a montitored site? A reference site? Members only? By invitation?

Dick: Great statement: no one knows about ignorance and no one cares about apathy. Maybe can work that into our planned National Highway Visibility conference logo and/or marquee? Ray Murphy, one of this site?s principles, is in contact with Bernie Wagenblast (Bernie manages a Yahoo Groups site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/messages). We have had related notice go out through the Transportation Communications Newsletter (5/12/03) and this website was featured as a website-of-the-week last week (5/22/03) Speaking for those of us involved at the moment (FHWA, WisDOT, others), we envision the Community of Practice as an evolving web-based resource for those interested in fog-related highway problems and events. It will allow participants to self-identify, relevant web-links can be identified, documents can be posted (currently through the 3 moderators listed), research needs can be identified and discussed, and the future (probably early 2004) National Highway Visibility conference can be discussed and planned. I?m actively involved with web-based activities like this, and the functionality of this site should improve with time. The FHWA maintained site is external, and was set up intentionally as an open discussion site, with monitoring of the discussion, and currently the posted documents have to be reviewed by a site monitor. It is not for members only, but given the nature of the small technical community, it almost has to be ?by invitation? in the sense that someone who thinks you?d be interested then e-mails you the link to an external FHWA hosted website to allow discussions related to weather-related (and more specifically fog-related) highway visibility issues and opportunities, found at http://www-fhwa1.ornl.gov/cops/hcx.nsf/home?openform&Group=National%20Highway%20Visibility. Thank you for your time and the post, Dick. Mark Chandler

Greetings: Kevin Lavin, executire director of the NWA forwarded this message to me. I've participated in a Partnership with the Louisiana Exressway Commission for several years on mainly a visibility problem we have over the tidal lakes in the New Orleans area mainly during the cold season months of Nov-Mar. Actually, anothe forecaster and myself conducted research in the early 90s concerning this weather related traffic hazard. Initially, the methodology for forecasting visibility over large bodies of water was done for the coastal waters of the central Gulf coast region. There is no numerical guidance available as an aid for forecasting dense fog over the cooler continental shelf watersand tidal lakes during the month mnonths. Another reason why this local research was conducted. We average 10 to 15 significnat fog events annually where the visibility lowers to less than one-half mile. We have developed a decision tree for use by the forecaster. You can find this decision tree on the NWA homepage (nwas.org) on the traiining committee's link under Decision trees. Any comment, please let me know. Alan Johnson alan.johnson@noaa.gov 985-649-0429

Please add my name and that of my co-worker to you list of interested. Dennis Johnson: dejohnson@dot.state.nv.us and John Phelon: jphelon@dot.state.nv.us This issue is very timely for research that is now being conducted. If anyone has any existing links to data sources, or data that is able to be forwarded, please do so. Any data will be greatly appreciated. Dennis Johnson NDOT

12 August 2003 Dear Mark, My compliments on a very useful site on an important topic. My background is not in highway issues but in cloud microphysics and the physics and chemistry of fog. In recent years my focus has been on the positive aspects of fog. In particular, the collection of fog in arid regions for use as a water supply. This is surprisingly effective and inexpensive when appropriate plastic meshes are utilized. I would like to bring a few points to your attention, which may be of interest. We have a not-for-profit charity, called FogQuest: sustainable water solutions, to carry out the water projects. The website is www.fogquest.org. There is a regular newsletter that carries information on both the development and scientific issues to do with fog. The most recent issue is posted. There have been two international conferences on fog and fog collection, in Vancouver in 1998 and in St. John's in 2001. The proceedings volume for the 2nd conference (536 pages) is still available. The 3rd conference will be in Cape Town in October 2004. More information can be found on the FogQuest website. FogQuest has a fully searchable database of over 3500 articles on fog and water issues. It is not strong on highway related matters but, if there is something that you would like me to look up, please let me know. I would like to keep our members aware of instrumentation being used to monitor fog on highways, techniques being employed to reduce fog occurrences and new fog forecasting techniques and models. I look forward to staying in touch. My best regards, Bob Dr. Robert Schemenauer Executive Director, FogQuest (fogquest@rogers.com) and Emeritus Research Scientist Environment Canada, Cloud Physics Research Division (robert.schemenauer@ec.gc.ca)

Dear sir, It is really a wonderful effort to bring forth the forgotten resource of water for agriculture and purest source for drinking water (After taking sufficient precations). I am also interested to participate in your endeavor. Due to administrative problems I may not pay the money for membership. can you help me in joining your site as a member? That would be great help for me stationed in the northern part of India often covered by fog during winters. I wish you goodluck meet you in the next mail sincerely subba rao

Dear sri subbarao, It is really great pleasure to meet you. I am down south experiencing fog conditions on occassions with zero visibility. And will be very happy to have a related disccustion on this with respect to the topic fog duration rainfall realation and time of occurrence. Hope you will help me in this. With regards.

We have recently received a simpler URL redirect http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/nhv for the National Highway Visibility Conference and website. Please use it when you get the opportunity. best regards, Mark Chandler