tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57776464190162374142024-03-05T06:43:49.463-05:00Weather Station QuirksJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-71171833923463283892011-06-25T22:03:00.001-04:002011-06-25T22:03:37.372-04:00Weather Extremes of 2010<p>I enjoy reading <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters">Jeff Masters' blog</a>. He is a co-founder of <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/">Wunderground.com</a>, certainly the best U.S.-centric non-government weather web site. Recently, he has been quite busy due to all the extreme weather we've been having in the U.S. and around the world. Though 2011 has already brought a new wave of amazing weather events (e.g. Mississippi flooding, Japan earthquake), he took the time to put together a <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1831">retrospective of the incredible weather extremes of 2010</a>, including Snowmageddon, the hottest year on record, and the wettest year on record. It's an excellent summary of an unprecedented year. He dug up pictures for all the major events to highlight the events. As usual, it's a great read.<br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-9635062376467409402011-06-01T21:46:00.003-04:002011-06-02T09:19:22.099-04:00OMG! First Lightning Picture!<p>I realize this sort of thing is old-hat to some. But, it's pretty exciting to someone who has never captured lightning before. :-) We've had a moderately severe storm rolling through Massachusetts today. A <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/06/thunderstorms_r_1.html">tornado touched-down in Springfield</a> and lightning has been recorded across the state. I say "moderate" because I grew up in Oklahoma and I know what the scene around a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujita_scale">severe storm</a> looks like---<i>nothing</i> is left behind. Here, a few buildings were damaged and a few people were killed. Nothing like the storm that hit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado">Joplin, MO</a>. Anyway, I was in the gym during the first round of the Mass. storm, but after I got home, another round of thunderstorms rolled through. We've had a Nikon D50 SLR for a number of years now and I've familiarized myself with shutter-speed and f-stop, so I decided to try my hand at capturing a lightning bolt. After futzing-around, I settled on a shutter speed of 30 seconds, manual focus, little-to-no-zoom and a 13 f-stop. After a few minutes of taking pictures out of our dining room window (which doesn't have a screen), I got one. I couldn't believe it!<br />
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3vXnsjrtETvtZ2XzBoMiX4cg2Lcu5_0tvoZKwdc2tmLJRRnu8WceiAB8df1gN-rLuM4MdrEG4lSq6TyPGjdPvPxIRzoZlUtGH2SNxwlI6bHv6ezl4r59HPWouW7_pNBrhCVI7nXErjEC/s1600/lightning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3vXnsjrtETvtZ2XzBoMiX4cg2Lcu5_0tvoZKwdc2tmLJRRnu8WceiAB8df1gN-rLuM4MdrEG4lSq6TyPGjdPvPxIRzoZlUtGH2SNxwlI6bHv6ezl4r59HPWouW7_pNBrhCVI7nXErjEC/s1600/lightning.jpg" /></a></div><p>FWIW, the rain was pretty strong with this storm. <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3&month=6&day=1&year=2011">My weather station recorded .63 inches of rain in 20 minutes</a>, a rate of 1.89 inches/hour.<br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-21493509332115224762011-02-09T13:09:00.002-05:002011-02-09T13:11:45.990-05:00Blizzards<p>It's nice to see that Wikipedia chronicles recent blizzards. We sure have had a lot of them lately! Here are the North American storms from the 2010-11 winter:<br />
<ul><li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2010_North_American_blizzard">December 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_8%E2%80%9313,_2011_North_American_blizzard">January 8-13, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_25%E2%80%9327,_2011_North_American_blizzard">January 25-27, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_31_%E2%80%93_February_2,_2011_North_American_winter_storm">January 31-February 2, 2011</a></li>
</ul>Here are the storms from the 2009-10 winter:<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_blizzard_of_2009">December 16-20, 2009</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_North_American_Christmas_winter_storm">December 22-28, 2009</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_5%E2%80%936,_2010_North_American_blizzard">February 5-6, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_9%E2%80%9310,_2010_North_American_blizzard">February 9-10, 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_25%E2%80%9327,_2010_North_American_blizzard">February 25-27, 2010</a></li>
</ul>I recall being disappointed that the 2010 February storms missed the Boston area. Now that I know a bit more about <a href="http://maintaining-a-house.blogspot.com/2011/02/damn-ice-dams.html">ice dams</a>, I really don't mind so much when big storms miss us! <br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-62301368611200098912011-02-09T12:56:00.000-05:002011-02-09T12:56:43.447-05:00North Atlantic Oscillation<p>The National Weather Service has a <a href="http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/teleconnections.shtml">page showing the current status of major weather oscillations around North America</a>, including the Atlantic Oscillation and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_oscillation">North Atlantic Oscillation</a>. The Atlantic Oscillation has been (strongly) negative from late November 2010 through late January 2011. It has recently lifted to positive territory. This has been quite noticeable around Boston as temperatures have warmed a bit and the pace of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nor'easter">Nor'easters</a> has slowed. <br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-12589014919104573292010-11-16T10:45:00.000-05:002010-11-16T10:45:01.462-05:00Don't Forget the Satellites<p>At a time when more Earth and weather observations are needed, not less, the U.S. government has been cutting back. Jeff Masters wrote about the <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1388">demise of the QuikSCAT satellite</a>. The NYTimes more recently raised the issue with the <a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/why-are-we-going-blind-in-space/">demise of the ICESat satellite</a>. With the government in cut-back mode, we may soon lose more important weather satellites and lessen our ability to accurately predict weather phenomena, such as <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at200511.asp">hurricanes</a>. This is one area where the money is clearly worth it---weather satellites save lives by providing alerts of dangerous weather events. This is especially important since we are in a phase of heightened hurricane activity and global warming may be increasing the frequency and/or intensity of hurricane storms.<br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-23119055859342319092010-10-25T15:00:00.011-04:002011-01-13T08:08:15.786-05:00Pressure: Converting between millibars and inches mercury<p>The two commonly-used units for measuring atmospheric pressure are millibars and inches mercury. My Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station reports pressure in inches mercury and millibars are the typical measurement used for recording hurricane pressure. A normal millibar reading is 1000; an extreme measurement is <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at201011.asp">925</a>. A normal inches mercury measurement is 30.0; an extreme measurement is 27.3. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure">Wikipedia pressure page</a> provides a relatively easy conversion path via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torr">torr</a>s. One millimeter mercury is equal to one torr, so one inch equals 25.4 torrs. One bar is equal to 750.06 torrs, so one millibar is equal to 0.75006 torrs.<br />
</p><p>Conversion from inches mercury to millibars simply amounts to conversion to millimeters/torrs, then conversion to millibars. The first involves multiplication by 25.4; the second involves division by 0.75006. The net scaling factor is 33.864. Conversion from millibars to inches mercury is simply the reverse calculation, so it simply involves multiplication by 0.02953.<br />
</p><p>So, 1000 millibars is equal to appx. 29.53 inches mercury. 30 inches mercury is equal to appx. 1016 millibars. A half-inch of mercury is equal to appx. 17 millibars. Here's a quick lookup table:<br />
</p><style>
table { border-collapse:collapse; margin: 0 0 1em 0; }
table, th, td { border: 1px solid black; padding: .5ex; }
</style><br />
<table style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: right;"><tr><th>in Hg</th><th>mb</th></tr>
<tr><td>30.0</td><td>1016</td></tr>
<tr><td>29.5</td><td>999</td></tr>
<tr><td>29.0</td><td>982</td></tr>
<tr><td>28.5</td><td>965</td></tr>
<tr><td>28.0</td><td>948</td></tr>
<tr><td>27.5</td><td>931</td></tr>
<tr><td>27.0</td><td>914</td></tr>
</table><p><b>Update (10/26/10)</b>: It's useful to note that a hecto-Pascal (10<sup>2</sup> Pa) is equal to one millibar (10<sup>-3</sup> bar). Equivalently, one bar is equal to 100,000 Pascals (10<sup>5</sup> Pa).<br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-57992852688582564032010-10-03T09:56:00.001-04:002010-10-03T09:57:22.410-04:00Down 32 degrees in 43 hours<p>After watching New England weather closely for a year, I've seen some wild temperature swings. But, one thing I rarely see is wild swings in the dew point. The dew point tends to be quite a bit more steady than temperature. But, with the latest storm that rolled through, I saw an amazingly large change in dew point---30 degrees in less than 48 hours. The remains of <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at201016.asp">Tropical Storm Nicole</a> made its way to the Boston area Thursday, September 30th. This pushed the dew point up to 71.9F degrees at 12:40pm on Friday, October 1st. I had to turn the air conditioning back on even though we had seen a low temperature of 42 just a week prior! The storm dumped <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3&day=1&year=2010&month=10">.64 inches of rain</a> then departed out to sea, taking all the humidity with it! The dew point fell quickly, <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3&day=3&year=2010&month=10">bottoming out at 39.6F at 7:30am on Sunday, October 3rd</a>. So, the dew point dropped 32.3F degrees in just under 43 hours! We had to turn the heat on this morning after having the A/C on just two days ago. Phew!<br />
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-70609301237412507442010-01-13T19:53:00.004-05:002010-01-14T08:30:22.636-05:00No 11F Low<p>
The <a href="http://www.weather.gov/">National Weather Service</a> is currently predicting a low of 11F for <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/US/MA/Natick/KBED.html">Bedford, MA</a> and a low of 12F for <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=kmanatic3&wuSelect=PWS">Natick, MA</a>. I find these forecasts hard to believe. Why? Because around 2pm today, the dew point shot up to 11F in Bedford and 13F in Natick and the dew point is currently 15F in Bedford and 17F in Natick. Yes, it is certainly possible that the dew point could drop overnight. But, I think more likely is that the jet stream shift that was due arrived a bit earlier than expected and the NWS has not used the sudden change in dew point as an indicator. Based on recent experience, late evening dew point has served as a lower bound for overnight temperature, so I'd be very surprised to see the NWS predictions come true. I'd bet that the overnight low will be around 20F in Natick and 17-18F in Bedford.
</p>
<p>
<b>Update</b> (1/14): I was wrong. The dew points dropped significantly this morning and temperatures fell along with them, hitting 14F in Natick and 9F in Bedford.
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-20380097787467889072010-01-05T08:19:00.002-05:002010-01-05T08:41:10.356-05:00Suspicious Forecast<p>I was surprised and a tad suspicious when, as of 1/4/10 12pm, the overnight low for 1/4-5 forcast by NWS for Central Middlesex County was 5-10F. At that point, the <b>dew point</b> was around 20F. I realize the dew point can rise/fall quickly overnight, but the predicted 15F degree drop seemed unusually large, especially considering that we weren't expecting any large shifts in pressure. My suspicions were partially confirmed when, later that day, the NWS updated its overnight low forecast to 15F. But, when I saw a temp of 24F and a dew point of 17F shortly before going to bed at 10pm, I was still suspicious whether we'd really make it down to 15F.</p>
<p>The next morning I awoke to find that the overnight low was 22.4F and that I wasn't alone---the main airport in my prediction region, <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/US/MA/Bedford/KBED.html">KBED</a>, recorded a low of 25F. Though, to the NWS's credit, another nearby airport in a nearby county, <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/US/MA/Norwood/KOWD.html">KOWD</a>, recorded a low of 16F. Still, I'm surprised the NWS prediction could be ~15F off less than 24 hours in advance, especially when daily variations in temperature are typically no more than 15 degrees! Here's hoping the NWS prediction programs noticed this anomaly...</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-23574769814547987752009-11-20T19:58:00.003-05:002009-11-20T20:03:41.732-05:00Blue Hill Observatory<p>
I didn't realize I was in such good company! The <a href="http://www.bluehill.org/">Blue Hill Observatory</a> in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=blue+hill+observatory,+milton,+ma&sll=42.311095,-71.330049&sspn=0.011536,0.01929&ie=UTF8&hq=blue+hill+observatory,&hnear=Milton,+MA&z=13">Milton, MA</a> is the location of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hill_Meteorological_Observatory">the oldest continuous weather record in North America</a>.
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-87152893275873743872009-11-20T11:41:00.011-05:002011-01-03T12:59:38.015-05:00Weather Station Quality<p>After watching observations from my <a href="http://www.davisnet.com/">Davis</a> <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/61wivaprowis.html">Vantage Pro2</a> and other nearby weather stations (via <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/">wunderground.com</a>), I can say with some confidence that the VP2 is one of the better stations out there. Even excluding cases where other stations have produced completely bogus data, the VP2 seems to produce measurements which are more consistent with nearby airport measurements. Most stations on Wunderground seem to produce good temperature measurements, but some of the humidity values are clearly off. Here are observations from two Oregon Scientific WMR series personal weather stations, two Davis Vantage Pro2 personal weather stations and two nearby airports: <table border=1><tr><th>Station</th><th>Temp (F)</th><th>Dew Point (F)</th><th>Humidity</th></tr>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAFRAMI4">KMAFRAMI4</a></td><td>59.2</td><td>37.3</td><td>44%</td></th>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAWELLE9">KMAWELLE9</a></td><td>58.8</td><td>35.8</td><td>42%</td></th>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3">KMANATIC3</a></td><td>59.1</td><td>49.0</td><td>68%</td></th>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAWELLE8">KMAWELLE8</a></td><td>56.3</td><td>49.9</td><td>68%</td></th>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KBED/2009/11/20/DailyHistory.html">KBED</a></td><td>59</td><td>48</td><td>67%</td></th>
<tr><td><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KOWD/2009/11/20/DailyHistory.html">KOWD</a></td><td>64</td><td>52</td><td>65%</td></th> </table>All of the personal weather stations are in the same general area and are certainly not distant enough to explain the differences in humidity. As you might guess, the first two are the Oregon Scientific WMR series stations, the next two are the Davis VP2s and the last two are airports (all in the western suburbs of Boston). The VP2 dew point/humidity measurements match the airport measurements reasonably closely. Not so for the Oregon Scientific WMR series stations which seem to report consistently low dew point/humidity readings. </p><p>Note: <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3">My station (KMANATIC3)</a> and <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAWELLE9">KMAWELLE9</a> are extremely close to each other. The other two personal weather stations are the next closest VP2 and Oregon Scientific WMR series stations. Data was collected at appx. 1:30pm 11/20/09. </p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-43673176010520904342009-11-09T22:32:00.003-05:002009-11-29T07:50:19.420-05:00Weewx Mailing List<p>
I thought <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">Weewx</a> deserves a mailing list, so I created one. See the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/weewx-user">Google group for weewx weather station discussion</a>.
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-35030214302857620222009-11-07T18:51:00.003-05:002009-11-07T19:11:57.908-05:00KMANATIC3 is live!<p>I dug a 2' 8" hole in my yard using a pole digger, mounted my Davis Vantage Pro2 on my 8' fence post and began recording real outdoor weather observations. I also created a <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/">Wunderground</a> station, <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMANATIC3">KMANATIC3</a>, and set up <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">weewx</a> to post weather information to Wunderground every 5 minutes. If you are following along at home, one thing I should note is that I got an INVALIDPASSWORDID error from Wunderground up to about 10 minutes after I created the station at Wunderground.com. But, then it went through fine without me having to do anything.
</p>
<p>
I must say, it's been a pleasure to use <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">weewx</a>. Hard to believe it's such a well-made product in it's first release!
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-68471215122881338742009-11-05T23:05:00.002-05:002009-11-08T18:53:39.829-05:00Up-and-RunningI installed my <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/dain65usbwef.html">data logger</a> to my VP2 console, installed <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">weewx</a> on my computer and I'm now successfully logging the weather conditions of my study and bedroom every 5 minutes! The only problem I had with weewx was that the startup script didn't respect the change I made to WEEWX_ROOT. But, that was an easy fix. Otherwise, weewx was easy to install. I doubt the weewx daemon needs to use the 50 megs of memory top is reporting, but I also doubt that I'll ever notice on my 8 gig machine...Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-10884241118679088192009-11-02T09:57:00.005-05:002009-11-20T19:25:07.364-05:00siting and 8' pole<p>
I'm getting closer to having my weather station up-and-running. I selected an installation location over the weekend. We have a lot of trees and don't get a ton of sunlight, so it was a bit challenging to find a spot with (1) at least a few hours of direct sunlight (for the solar panel), (2) no rain obstructions directly overhead and limited rain shadow from trees, and (3) semi-accurate wind measurements (not too close to building/hill), (4) without being an eyesore. But, I think I've found a decent spot. There's no way I can follow all of wunderground's <a href="http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/PWS_-_Siting">weather station siting recommendations</a>, but I know my measurements aren't going to be airport quality!
</p>
<p>
I also figured out how I'm going to mount the station. I ended up in the fencing section of Home Depot and found an 8 foot, 1 5/8" diameter fence end post, which should let me position the station about 5 feet off the ground. I also bought a pole digger---it sounds like I just need to put the pole about 2 1/2 feet into the ground and make sure the ground is well compacted around it---not quite as challenging as installing a basketball hoop or fence.
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-30455304127320453022009-11-02T09:41:00.005-05:002009-11-02T09:56:28.212-05:00Wunderfixer and Weewx<p>
Sounds like if I'll want a relatively clean history of my station stored at <a href="http://www.wunderground.com">wunderground.com</a>, I'll need the <a href="http://www.weewx.com/wunderfixer/">Wunderfixer</a>, which is a utility for updating wunderground records to match your <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">weewx</a> or <a href="http://www.wviewweather.com/">wview</a> records on a given day. I.e. it sounds like you first need to do the detective work to discover the lapse at wunderground. But, then, this script makes the fix easy.
</p>
<p>
This discovery also leads me to believe that <a href="http://www.weewx.com/">weewx</a> may be the recording/uploading software I should use. Whereas wview is written in C++ and handles a wide variety of configurations, weewx is written in Python and is written for exactly my situation---uploading data from a <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/61wivaprowis.html">Vantage Pro2</a> to <a href="http://www.wunderground.com">wunderground.com</a> using U.S. units via a desktop machine (wview is so efficient that it can run on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2">Linksys NSLU2</a>). Since the weewx code base is Python and much smaller (than wview's), it should be <b>much</b> easier to understand and modify. Another plus is that the author reported no DST issues whereas from what I read on the mailing list, it sounded like wview only recently switched to using UTC-based timestamps...
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-81801524214204727602009-10-30T08:53:00.003-04:002009-10-30T09:03:14.210-04:00It Works!<p>
After letting it sit for two months half-opened while we've been busy getting settled and doing more essential house projects, I finally got around to putting together my <a href="http://www.davisnet.com/">Davis</a> <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/61wivaprowis.html">Vantage Pro2</a> last night. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the material quality and attention to detail I saw as I read the manual and put pieces together. Though there wasn't all that much to be done, the manual took you through all the necessary steps, providing tips and troubleshooting advice when appropriate. The manual even took me through steps to confirm proper functioning of the system, which I appreciated.
</p>
<p>
So, Davis gets a thumbs-up for now. Though, I'm sure the real test will come once I get the ISS installed in the yard somewhere. For now, it's doing a great job of measuring the weather conditions of our bedroom and transmitting those to our study about 50' away...
</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-61000009776108683752009-10-18T20:11:00.000-04:002009-10-18T20:12:48.437-04:00Wunderground WikiThe <a href="http://wiki.wunderground.com/">Wunderground</a> has a nice <a href="http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/PWS_-_Personal_Weather_Stations">wiki page describing how to set up your personal weather station so that it can upload data to wunderground</a>.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-59019827069670837302009-09-20T14:45:00.000-04:002009-09-20T14:47:30.376-04:00Dumbing Down Wviewmteel says that Wview works great as a simple data archiving server and it's easy to add posting of data to Wunderground. His description makes it sound easy:
<a href="http://groups.google.com/group/wview/web/dumbing-down-wview-setting-up-a-data-archive-only-server">http://groups.google.com/group/wview/web/dumbing-down-wview-setting-up-a-data-archive-only-server</a>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-83860668789972162012009-09-11T10:27:00.000-04:002009-09-11T10:37:04.736-04:00Dave's Ditty<a href="http://david.kabal.org/setting-up-wview-5-5-3-on-ubuntu-9-0-4.html">http://david.kabal.org/setting-up-wview-5-5-3-on-ubuntu-9-0-4.html</a>
Okay, it's not really a song, but it made me want to sing to find such clear instructions for setting up wview. Note that the non-generic instructions start at step #11. Only drawback I see is that I have a USB communication connection, not serial port... My WeatherLink package is schedule to arrive Monday. I know what I'll be doing next weekend!Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777646419016237414.post-55678699249620026252009-09-04T11:16:00.001-04:002009-09-04T11:27:32.635-04:00Davis Vantage Pro2My wife just got me a <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/61wivaprowis.html">Davis Vantage Pro2</a> for my birthday. My first task has been to figure out what I need to get it up-and-running. I've more-or-less selected <a href="http://www.wviewweather.com/">wview</a> as my data management software of choice as it seems to be the most mature and best support Linux option. After calling Davis and posting on the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/wview/browse_thread/thread/9d3fded0a59ffed6">wview group</a>, I've learned that the <a href="http://www.ambientweather.com/dain65usbwef.html">WeatherLink</a> package is a <b>required</b> purchase for communicating data to a computer. A bit hard to believe that the included adapter isn't included in the Vantage Pro2 package---are there really people who just like to stare at the console? But, I digress. WeatherLink is on order and I'll be trying to install wview soon...Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00489496856755184870noreply@blogger.com1