Oakland County CISMA

Hello Everyone,

The Oakland County Co-operative Invasive Species Management Area or OC CISMA, has been formed!

A meeting hosted by Orion Township, and attended by 15 of the 19 grant partners created the Steering Committee on January 13, 2015. A grant was submitted by Orion Township to the MDNR for the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program on behalf of these 19 partners on December 5, 2014.

The partners are as follows:
Addison Township
Charter Township of Bloomfield
Charter Township of Brandon
City of the Village of Clarkston
Charter Township of Independence
City of Keego Harbor
Michigan Nature Association
North Oakland Headwaters Land Conservancy
Oakland County Conservation District
Oakland County Intermediate School District
Oakland County Parks and Recreation Commission
Oakland Phragmites & Invasive Species (OPIS) Task Force
Charter Township of Orion
The Road Commission for Oakland County
Rose Township
Charter Township of Springfield
The Stewardship Network
Charter Township of Waterford
West Bloomfield Parks and Recreation Commission

The Parties established the OC CISMA to establish and document an organizational framework of collaboration and cooperation between the Parties to work toward addressing the effects of invasive species across jurisdictional boundaries.

On February 15, 2015, the results will be given by the MDNR to the Parties. Funds can be dispersed as early as April 1, 2015. Several of the Parties have started an Action Plan for winter of 2015, to hit the ground running when the funds are dispersed.

If you reside in one of these communities and would like to be part of this newly formed organization, and would like to join in with their efforts, please contact OPIS at www.oaklandphragmitestaskforce.com.

As a private homeowner, business owner, property owner, learn how you can eradicate invasive plants from your property and waterways. It is possible to regain our land from these invasive plants.

Winter has arrived! Polar Vortex or Alberta Clipper?

Polar Vortex  vs.  Alberta Clipper,

Baby It's Cold Outside!!!!

It is being blamed on the Polar Vortex. New buzz words for cold, frigid and nasty below freezing temperatures.  Some remembering cold winters being blamed on the Alberta Clipper. Are they one and the same? How do we turn them off?

Each system is responsible for frigid temperatures, fierce winds and snowfall. While they are both centers of low atmospheric pressure, a polar vortex is an actual cyclone, albeit a very large one.

 The Alberta clipper forms, moves across North America from west to east, and then breaks up. Whereas the polar vortices are just "there," all the time, drifting, ebbing and flowing, strengthening and weakening. So, the polar vortex doesn't "form, then sweep, then disband." It's always up there at the North Pole within a certain area, and when the conditions are right it expands or "spills" down into Canada and the US.

The Alberta clipper is fast-moving; the polar vortex, not so much. The "Alberta" part of the name is obviously a reference to its origin in the area of Alberta, but the "clipper" part is a reference to the fast-moving sea vessels. The polar vortex doesn't move so much as it just changes shape. And how fast it changes shape depends on what happens to those forces that are keeping it penned in.

The Polar Vortex usually retreats in mid March but can extend into May, opening the door for warmer air and Spring. The winter of 2014, a Polar Vortex nightmare,  set many records here in Michigan. Let's hope the winter of 2015 will not be following with that trend.

NORTHERN POLAR VORTEX, WITH CENTERS OVER SIBERIA AND CANADA