Davis Instruments Weather Club
January 2000
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Here's a quick preview of this month's contents:
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What's new on the web...Keeping babies warm.... How much water is in snow...and Everyone has a story... Enjoy!
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Davis: What's new on the web
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Last month, we announced our newly re-designed and greatly improved website. At the time, the Marine and DriveRight sections were not yet finished. We are pleased to announce that all three of Davis' product lines, Weather, DriveRight, and Marine, are up and running. We've also finished the product photo gallery, http://davisnet.com/news/photos/index.asp, which contains even more pictures than you'll find in our catalogs.
Here are a few pointers on using our new site. Some products, like extension cables or gloves, come in a variety of sizes and configurations. To best present the choices available, we've created pages listing these related products together. If, after examining the lists, you'd like to see a particular cable or glove, perhaps with a picture, you can access the individual product page through "Search for Product". The search engine works using product number or a keyword -- like "glove" or "sticky pocket".
If you're looking for manuals or other technical documents, you can find them in the support section. However, if you're looking for documents specific to a product, say the Weather Monitor II, we recommend going through Products to the Weather Monitor II product page, and clicking on "More info". This will give you a list of all the documents relating specifically to that product.
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Cool Ap: Keeping babies warm
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Winter has come. Many of us can be found curled up in a blanket in front of the fire with a good book. Our thermostat maintains a comfortable room temperature. But what happens if the room temperature doesn't stay stable?
For most adults, these temperature variations may be annoying or uncomfortable, but hardly life threatening. That's not true for infants, particularly premature infants and neonates. The smaller the child, the relatively more area they have to lose (or gain) heat. Therefore they're very susceptible to changes in the environment.
Charles Winslow, medical director of a neonatal intensive care unit in Grand Rapids, Michigan faced such a dilemma. His group provides critical care support for infants often weighing only one or two pounds. Dr. Winslow writes: Neonates have very little ability to maintain their own core temperatures or to respond to fluctuations in the environmental conditions in the intensive care unit. When I had trouble convincing my environmental services personnel that there was too much fluctuation in temperature and humidity inside the unit, I purchased a Perception II.
You can imagine the rest of the story: I documented large swings in inside environmental conditions. They responded and fixed the problem. A major "Thank You" to Davis Instruments.
Thank you Dr. Winslow. It's great to know our station made a difference for these kids!
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Fun Information: How much water is in snow
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We really enjoying getting e-mail from club members. Sometimes the message contains a question that makes us think, like the one from W.
Andrew Highberger of Marysville, OH. Andrew writes:
>I recently installed your heating device in the rain collector of my Weather Monitor II, and I love it. I am now able to measure the water content of snow, freezing rain, etc. I was wondering how you get from inches of snow to inches of precipitation (melted snow).
We sent the question to our resident meteorologist, Jason. He writes:
>According to my references, on average, the ratio is 10:1. That is, 10" of snow equals 1" of liquid precipitation. However, a great deal of variability occurs depending upon the type of snowfall. Wet snows which occur at higher temperatures (near freezing, 32 F) can have a 6:1 ratio; dry snows which occur at very cold temperatures can have a ratio as high as 30:1. Partially melted leftover snow on the ground toward the end of the snow season can have a ratio as low as 2:1.
>That's why it's important to measure the water equivalent of each storm. In many applications, it's more important to know the water equivalent of snowfall, then the depth of the snow itself.
>Excellent question!
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Just a Reminder: Everyone has a story
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Now that we have the website rolling, it's time to tell some stories. If you have a Davis product story you haven't shared yet, now's the time. Send your story to story@davisnet.com or reply to the newsletter. Be sure to include your name and where you are from. We hope to have stories posted in time for February's newsletter!
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That's it for January's E-news! See you next month. To subscribe to this e-newsletter go to: http://davisnet.com/news/e_club_signup.asp
