31-May-2010, 20:37 Gracewood weather station has been down nearly 24 hours. I am always amazed how it seems that technological problems with the weather station creep up when I am out of town and can't be on hand to troubleshoot the problem. This time the problem was with the router. It needed rebooting which immediately reconnected the weather station to the Internet and re-started the data uploads. The software and computer were operating just fine this time around. This was my first internet failure in a long time. The weather software uploads the missed data to Weather Underground, backfilling in the graphs and records. CWOP doesn't receive historical data, so there will be a gap in the weather records on that site for the Gracewood station. The custom weather page for Gracewood weather will also update the missed data. 24-May-2010, 20:20 Weather Radio Part 1 Weather conditions, forecasts and alerts are provided by the National Weather Service (NWS) over their NOAA Weather Radio system Typically, weather radios in the Augusta area, CSRA (Central Savannah River Area) can pick up four signals on the NOAA Weather Radio network. Each of these four weather broadcasts is published by the West Columbia, SC National Weather Service office located at Columbia, SC airport. Augusta Bush Field use to have a NWS office as well, but downsizing and modernizing by NWS in the 1990's resulted in the Augusta office being closed. The four weather radio stations whose broadcast range extends into the CSRA are: 1. Waynesboro (WXM88, 375 watts) on 162.425 (channel 2). This transmitter is located in Shell Bluff. 2. Aiken (WNG627, 300 watts) on 162.450 (channel 3). It's transmitter is in the Aiken area. 3. Barnwell (KHC29, 1,000 watts) on 162.500 (channel 5). The transmitter is in Barnwell. 4. Augusta (WXK54, 1,000 watts) on 162.55 (channel 7). The transmission comes from Wrens. NWS also broadcasts on three other frequencies, but there are no signals on these channels (1,4,6) which can be heard in the CSRA. The important question to be answered is, "Which radio broadcast should one listen to?" The first important consideration is signal strength. Listen to the broadcast that your weather radio receives with the least amount of problems. Obviously, the usefulness of the radio report is lost if you can't hear the broadcast reliably. So, it is important to try all four of the broadcasts to determine which one is best heard at your location. If more than one signal can be consistently heard at your location, then there are other aspects of the weather broadcast to give thought to. Look for part 2 on NOAA Weather Radio in a future journal entry. from Les Cimes, weather hobbyist 22-May-2010, 14:55 Rain returned to the CSRA this week. A look at the rainfall amounts around the area through noon today shows that areas south of Augusta received close to .5 inches. Thus the south Richmond County station recorded .52 inches and the Milky Way Dairy station, a bit further south marked .44 inches. Moving northward from the southern CSRA, one finds that the rainfall amounts drop off some. The stations in Gracewood and Bush Field measured, respectively, .27 inches and .24 inches, almost half of what the southern end of the area received. The amounts jump back up in the west Augusta area. Daniel Field recorded this week 1.01 inches - the highest in the CSRA, while the Waverly station and Westminster Schools caught .83 inches and .76 inches respectively.So there is quite a bit of variation. I suspect that as thunderstorms return to the afternoons of the summer days that the localization of the rainfall amounts will become more pronounced. Psalm 147:8 seems appropriate... "He covers the heavens with the clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills." (ESV) 18-May-2010, 19:11 The developer of the station software released another update which I have installed and am now using. The previous version crashed early last night. So my station was not uploading to the Net until I restarted it nearly 16 hours later. However, the missed data uploaded retrospectively on the Weather Underground site. Rainfall yesterday brought a tenth of an inch. It certainly helps remove the dryness but isn't all that much. The front that is slowly moving through will bring some relief from rising temperatures. Lows tomorrow morning could touch the fifties. That is welcomed. 10-May-2010, 22:35 A few days ago, I installed an updated, albeit, "alpha" version (LWC2.0.90) of Lightsoft Weather Center, the software that brings the weather data to the Net for the Gracewood weather station. This updated version has the ability to upload historical weather data to Weather Underground. So, if the computer goes down, the missed weather data will upload later when the system is up and running again. Am also working with custom web pages for the station for the first time. A fellow weather hobbyist from over in Columbia has contributed a pretty handy template for laying out a lot of weather data in a very convenient, easy to read format. My appreciation to Todd for sharing his knowledgeable web design skills by providing a template out of which to build a great weather page. Had a trace of rain this evening but not enough to trigger the rain gauge. A few miles below my station in south Richmond County the passing clouds dropped .06 inches. Bush Field didn't register any rainfall either. Interesting how localize rainfall can be. 08-May-2010, 16:08 Once again, the CSRA is seeing dramatic changes in the weather. Perhaps the most obvious, again, is the increase in the winds today. Not so obvious, however, is the drop in the dew point. The high dew point over the last couple of days has been 75 degrees. Today the dew point has dropped over 30 degrees to a low of 44 degrees. So, the air is a lot drier. The low humidity, along with the nice winds make the high temperature of 89 degrees seem less intense. Note, the lowest dew point of the year was back on January 11 at 4 degrees! Now that is pretty dry air. Accompanying the dramatic changes will be much lower lows. Forecasters are calling lows in the low fifties tomorrow and upper forties Monday morning. The afternoon heat dissipates much more rapidly when the air is drier. 02-May-2010, 22:00 Spent the weekend in the mountains of north Georgia. While the weather up there was cool, in the sixties, temperatures here in Augusta peaked at 93 degrees today. I sure don't look forward to the nineties. Spring is now well advanced in Augusta, perhaps a bit delayed according to the preferences of the Masters managers trying to get the peak blooming period to coincide with the golf tournament. Dogwoods are finished blossoming, as are most azaleas. All the trees are green and, of course, the yard needed mowing recently. Well, this weekend, I may have found the last refuge of winter in Georgia. The top of Brasstown Bald Mountain, the highest peak in Georgia at 4,784 feet, was still mostly covered with bare trees. Leaves were just beginning to peep out of the buds. Some of the bushes had leaves, but mostly the typical signs of spring were just beginning to show. A quick drive back down the mountain brought me back into the fullness of spring with many wildflowers along the stream banks and nature trails. 28-Apr-2010, 23:37 The very noticeable weather phenomenon the last several days has been the wind. Wow! it has been really blowing out there. My weebly-wobbly anemometer mast hasn't prevented by anemometer from catching some pretty good gusts. The highest so far was 32 mph Tuesday. The speed of gusts has been in the mid-twenty mph the last couple of days. In comparison, Bush Field recorded a gust of 49 mph yesterday! Daniel Field showed a 39 mph gust. So there has been some pretty good blow'in in the wind. I have had a fair amount of debris in the yard and along the neighborhood street from it, but no large branches blew off, fortunately. Colder temperatures have been nice as well, getting into the mid-forties. It won't be long before we see lows bottoming out above seventy degrees. I will long for the fall weather at that point. 25-Apr-2010, 21:17 At last some rain! My station received .93 inches, mostly Saturday night and Sunday morning. Bush Field shows a little less at .86 inches. It was enough to re-soak the ground and freshen all the plants. I often wonder why the Augusta area has such inconsistent rainfall. We seem to go from one dry spell to another with a bit of rain in between. While annual rainfall amounts show a fair amount of rainfall, I think its affect is compromised by raining in spurts instead of spread out evenly over the course of a month. A look at global wind patterns might give a clue as to why Augusta has inconsistent rainfall. Augusta, situated on the 32 parallel is right on the edge of the sinking winds of the Hadley Cells. Sinking winds have a drying affect upon the weather. The Sahara Desert is caused principally by this effect of sinking winds. While Augusta certainly isn't as dry as the Sahara, it is reasonable that our climate is influenced by the Hadley Cell, moderated, of course, by other factors. Scientific understanding aside, it is nice to have a fresh rain in the area. Ciao. 20-Apr-2010, 19:05 Today's forecast of 40% chance of rain, indeed, brought a bit of rain. Showing .01 inches - a little is better than none. Afternoon cloud cover caused the day's high of 75 degrees to register early, just after one PM. Afternoon highs are usually around 5 PM. Today's early peak has allowed the temperature to drop below 70 degrees just after 4 PM. Meanwhile, spring weather has been very dry. Where are the thunderstorms and the heavy rains of passing cold fronts? Our release this past winter from drought conditions may be short lived if this pattern keeps up. Based on the WU statistics, Bush Field recorded the state of Georgia's low temperature this morning. I wonder how often that happens. Bush Field does have a tendency to catch cooler temperatures at night. For example, Nearby NWS Daniel Field station showed a low of 53 degrees this morning 8 degrees higher than Bush Field. Weather Underground's new full screen Interactive WunderMap is terrific to use; it's easy to get a "bird's eye view" of the region's weather and what all the data stations are recording. Note, I noticed a bug in the Personal Weather Station page counter. The counter accidentally resets back to zero around the 10th of each month instead of counting up through the whole month. WU tech support is aware of the problem, but fixing it isn't a high priority - not that page hits are a reliable indicator of the popularity of a weather station; every reload is counted as a hit. So one visitor can reload the page multiple times which inflates the count artificially. 15-Apr-2010, 21:23 Clear and dry skies (Dew Point is 53 degrees) tonight allowed a great view of the waxing crescent moon with Venus poised above and to the left of the crescent and the glow of the setting sun providing a soft curtain of light behind. Such conjunctions of heavenly bodies are always a blessing to see. Mercury is nearby as well, but I my horizon was too high for me to see it. Visited the the site of another recently setup weather station located in west Augusta (Waverly subdivision). The amazing thing about this site is that the station manager wrote the software for interfacing with the weather instruments himself on a Linux machine. It was fascinating chatting with him and seeing the setup. The site is a difficult one in not allowing for "ideal" siting according the NWS standards, but the location will certainly be fun to follow and useful for discerning micro-weather conditions, a topic which I find particularly fascinating. 14-Apr-2010, 21:20 Well, the big tournament is over and life in Augusta quiets back down to more normal levels. Augusta goes all out for Master Tournament. Even the weather often seems to cooperate with the golf schedule. This year the weather couldn't have been better. A bit of rain late Thursday served to wash pollen out of the air and bring in cooler temperatures for the players. While I think perhaps the peak flowering period missed the tournament, nonetheless, the azaleas, dogwoods and redbuds have been beautiful. Low temperatures in the early mornings are still in the forties which is nice for keeping the air conditioning needs to a minimum. Afternoon highs in the upper seventies and low eighties are enhancing everyone's spring fever, especially at the local schools where anticipation of summer vacation is surely growing in the minds of the students. The high temperature so far this April is 92 degrees. Low 42 degrees. Two new weather stations are now online in the area with Weather Underground. South Richmond County just came on over the weekend; and this evening Milky Way Dairy just over the county line into Burke County is up and running. Welcome to Nevin and Floyd, amateur meteorologists operating, respectively, the two new weather stations. 09-Apr-2010, 23:39 A spring cold is on its way with low forty degree temperatures predicted for the morning. This week in 2009 the low reached 34 degrees! In 2008 mid-April had a 32 degree low. So cold temperatures are not unusual for April. After the .20 inches of rain, the pollen is much less of a nuisance, a most welcomed relief. Had a fun day checking out potential sites for new weather stations for friends, one just across the county line in Burke County and the other in south Richmond County a few miles north of the Burke County line. Hope we can get these new stations operative and uploading to the net in a few weeks. 06-Apr-2010, 22:18 Very warm and dry weather conditions for the last week to ten days have allowed the pine pollen to proliferate. Dust clouds of pollen blow across the yard; the visibility across the Augusta valley looking northward into North Augusta is obscured. Afternoon temperatures have broken into the nineties for the first time since last fall. Fortunately, rain is in the forecast for Thursday afternoon and night. A good rain will clean the air and wash away the pollen. 02-Apr-2010, 11:46 Good Friday! And today's fine spring weather with mild temperatures, blooming flowers and greening trees foretell of the resurrection and Easter morning. On a more mundane level, we sure could use a bit of cleansing rain. Pollen this morning is so thick as to cloud the air in a fog like manner. Dry conditions and light winds are perfect for the dust clouds of pollen. A good rainfall would take care of all of that. Early this week I enjoyed a visit from an agriculturalist who accesses the weather station data regularly to help with farming decisions in nearby Burke County. Just when I was beginning to think no one was paying any attention to the Gracewood weather station, he dropped in to see the installation and to inquire about the equipment. Am glad to know that there is some interest in the data other than just my own. Thanks, Floyd! 21-Mar-2010, 22:43 Installed latest beta release of LWC2 version 0.6.0 build 3125. Am examining its features and capabilities to see what has changed. Spring is officially here, yesterday being the spring equinox. 06-Jan-2010, 21:08 Installed LWC2_0.5.0. This is the latest beta release of LWC. Includes new features for webcam use with LWC. Weather this week has been cold. This is the longest cold spell I can remember for some time. Temperatures are in the low twenties at night and barely break out of the thirties during the day. 31-Dec-2009, 16:44 Just installed LWC2 on a new Mac Mini. Program is running well on this capable computer, much better than on the ten year old G3 Mac tower. Weather on this last day of 2009 is rainy, foggy - good day to stay inside and play on the computer. 03-Nov-2009, 21:58 Am now using LWC 2.035 on a test basis. Fall weather conditions have returned after a period of unseasonably warm and humid conditions. Clear skies and cool nights are with us for a while. 19-Apr-2009, 21:32 Installed LWC 2.02 this evening. It started up without problem. Asked for permissions promptly. Downloaded historical data. It is now uploading fresh data to WU and CWOP. Weather station is functioning normally. 23-Mar-2009, 21:50 Installed and now using the latest beta release of LWC, 2.0.12. 03-Mar-2009, 22:25 Am installing LWC2.01, the latest release that sports a new internal architecture. 23-Dec-2008, 21:57 Warm weather is returning to the Augusta area. Early morning lows in the lower twenties will give way to mid to high thirties; and highs will be back on the upper sixties. Replaced the transmitter board on the station. Evidently a defect was causing premature run-down of the battery. Hopefully the new circuit board will resolve the problem. Lost about three hours of data last night due to the battery running too low. Cleaned the rain gauge at the same time. All systems are function normally. 30-Nov-2008, 22:20 Am now using LWC version 2, a beta release with a new architecture that will expand it capabilities and flexibilities. Rain has been falling for two days bringing 2.63 inches of rain to Gracewood. 19-Oct-2008, 12:51 Discovered a little problem this morning with the anemometer. The bird perch placed above the anemometer to keep birds from alighting on the wind vane was blocking the vane from swiveling 360 degrees. Evidently an extra heavy bird used the perch and jammed it down on top of the vane. I quickly climbed up the mast with a long extension pole which I used to push the perch back up above the anemometer. Thus the problem is fixed, at least until another overweight bird land on the perch. 21-Sep-2008, 20:35 A light rain is falling this evening. Cooler temperatures are most welcomed! 13-Sep-2008, 12:56 Purchased and installed the fan-aspirated radiation shield kit on the Vantage Pro 2. The weather was inoperative for a couple of hours during the installation. Slight noise from the fan operating when there is enough sunlight to activate the solar panel to power the fan confirms that it is functioning properly. Curiously, the installation instructions required that the relative humidity sensor be turn over. Evidently, the original position of the RH sensor was upside down and prone to incorrect readings and subject to dust and dirt accumulation. I cleaned the radiation shield. The weather station is operating normally. Hopefully, the fan-aspirated radiation shield will allow for more accurate RH readings and temperature readings during the hot humid Georgia afternoons. 20-May-2008, 16:57 Just an hour ago a severe thunderstorm came through dropping hail, a half inch of rain and heavy winds. Outside temperature dropped over 15 dgrees F. Many leaves have been stripped off the the trees. Probably will have roof damage; the car is now severly dimpled. Now, one hour later, the sun is shining and skies clear. 10-Apr-2008, 13:10 The Masters Golf Tournament has begun in Augusta! The weather is terrific for golfer and spectator alike. Early morning heavy fog may have delayed tee times. (Observe the merged temperature and dew point lines on the graph.) Spring blooms are well along their way and the last of the bare trees is now bearing its leaves. Curious that it is fall colors that always captured attention but the colors of early spring with all of its hues of green, blossoms and freshness shouldn't be ignored. 31-Mar-2008, 16:40 Weather has been overcast and rainy this past weekend. The rain has been needed, as it usually is in the sand hills between the coastal plains and the foothills where Gracewood is located. Temperatures have remained cool and I am in no hurry for the hotter temperatures of late spring and summer just around the corner. The VP2 console, which has been warning of a low battery on the ISS for some time quit giving the warning. Perhaps the battery finally died. In any case, I replace the battery today so as to avoid losing data overnight when the solar panel isn't generating power. 16-Mar-2008, 15:08 Augusta is having a beautiful, you might say idyllic, day of clear skies, mild temperatures and a delightful breeze this first day of Holy Week, Palm Sunday. In contrast, a serious storm front came through yesterday evening spawning tornadoes, hail and, in Aiken county across the river, a curfew was imposed for public safety purposes. Gracewood was spared; radar showed that storms passed just to the north and the south of us, leaving only a quarter inch of rainfall and 30 mph gusts of wind in the neighborhood. 07-Mar-2008, 06:29 Expecting a full day of overcast rainy skies. This may be winter's last gasp in the south. Weather of this past week has been balmy and very pleasant. 05-Feb-2008, 23:07 Augusta area recorded a new record high for the day. At the NWS station, high was 81 deg F. Here at Gracewood, slightly higher elevation, high was 80 deg. F 03-Feb-2008, 12:26 Clear, cool morning with hopes for a warm afternoon full of sunshine. Switched UW uploads to 20 minutes and Rapid Fire mode to 10 seconds. 02-Feb-2008, 08:28 Low this morning was 30 degrees. While not real cold, it did produce a nice frost that was pretty in the early morning sunshine. 31-Jan-2008, 22:25 Rain has been fairly heavy at times this evening. The area needs it badly. 30-Jan-2008, 19:48 Installed new weather station software, Lightsoft Weather Center. It is capturing data from the Davis Instruments Vantage Pro 2, a wireless weather console. |