Davis Instruments Weather Club

September 2008

In This Issue:

WEATHER STATIONS IN ACTION:

• 21st Century Vantage Pro Watches Over 6th Century Historical Site
• View From Inside a Bird’s Nest
• Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame
  

  WEATHER 101:

• Storm of Anxiety
  

  MAILBAG:

• Fan Mail from Moose Country
• Fan Mail from Next Door
• “Thanks for the Plug!”
• Eagle Eye Tom Wonders What “Pressure Ridge” Means
• Vantage Pro2s Make the News:
• “Ray Said…” Commonly Overheard by Weather Watchers in North Carolina

YOU'RE BRILLIANT!
• Answers to Quiz Questions

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
• Davis!
  

WEATHER STATIONS IN ACTION:

21st Century Vantage Pro Watches Over 6th Century Historical Site

Jean Lyon sent us this photo of a Vantage Pro in the Bamiyan valley of Afghanistan, where the famous stone Buddhas once stood.

Last year, Jean Lyon reported seeing a familiar sight in the unfamiliar and beautiful Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan. There, watching over the empty niches where the giant stone Buddhas stood for 1,500 years before the Taliban destroyed them in 2001, was a Davis Vantage Pro!

The Vantage Pro still stands in the front yard of “The Roof of Bamiyan” hotel.

Jean wrote, “After an eight-hour trip by car (160 miles) we decided to spend the night at the best hotel of Bamiyan called ‘The Roof of Bamiyan,’ which is no Hilton but at least has running water and power in the evening. To my great surprise I found a Vantage Pro in the front yard of the hotel facing the Buddha niches. The story is that a wealthy Japanese business man living in California wanted to be able to recreate the Buddhas as holograms. To achieve this he needed power which is not available in large supply in this area as it is mainly produced by individual generators for each house. This man decided to produce power using win- powered generators and to do this he needed to study over a long period the main winds in this area which led him to install a Vantage Pro.”

Jean has come across possibly one of the most remote and unusual locations for a high tech weather station. And one of the saddest! The two stone Buddhas, at 180 and 121 feet (55 and 37 meters) tall, were once the largest standing Buddhas in the world, carved into the sheer cliff face in the sixth century.

When the Taliban and Al Qaeda were at their peak of power, the Buddhas were destroyed because the Taliban leaders felt that they were “gods of the infidels.” Since the destruction (which was not easy – they withstood days of anti-aircraft fire and anti-tank mines, before finally falling to explosives placed in holes drilled into the Buddhas), archaeologists under UNESCO leadership have discovered hidden caves and art, and have been scrambling to keep the unstable cliff face from cracking. They have even worked tirelessly to gather the statue fragments in the hopes of reconstructing them elsewhere.

The Japanese businessman Jean referred to is actually an artist named Hiro Yamagata. His plan to project images of the Bhuddas into the niches using 14 laser systems will be solar and wind powered. The $90 million project is slated to be completed by June 2012, if it gets UNESCO approval. For more on this project, click on CBS News.)

Jean, I bet that Vantage Pro was the last thing you expected to see in that lovely valley! Thank you for bringing the photo home to us – we are really honored to be part of Yamagata’s project.

Weather Check Quiz Question 1: Scientists have successfully used laser beams to create weather. What weather?
A. Measurable rainfall from seeded clouds
B. Electrical activity in a thunder cloud
C. Tornadic activity
D. Fog
E. Rainbows
(Click here for answers.)

View From Inside a Bird’s Nest

China’s Meter Technology Corporation technicians working with the Chinese Meteorological Association in setting up Vantage Pro2s inside the Bird’s Nest during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing..

The Beijing Olympics gave us a whole new cadre of stars to celebrate. From Michael Phelps and Stephanie Rice to Usain Bolt and He Kexin, the athletes were pretty amazing. Too bad they had to share the stage, so to speak, with some dazzling newcomers to the Olympics, Vantage Pro2!

While it’s no surprise that organizers of the 2008 Games would want only the best for the Bird’s Nest, some of our readers might be surprised to know that Davis weather stations are becoming more familiar in the hot market of China. James Guan of Meter Technology Corporation (MTC) is one of our Chinese distributors. He told us that Vantage Pro2s are cropping up all over China and that business is brisk.

(Did you see it for yourself? One of our engineers was delighted to see a nice view of one of the Vantage Pro2s in the background of the televised high jump competition. He cheered for it to medal, but they gave the Gold to some guy who seemed to have wings on his ankles!)

Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Would you like to open the next Davis Instruments weather catalog and see your smiling self and your weather station looking back at you? We love to put photographs of our Vantage Pro2 users in our catalogs. Our favorites show the station and a person or two, especially if the station is providing an unusual or interesting function. If you have such a photo lying around in your computer or camera (or could get one), send it to us at news@davisnet.com.

WEATHER 101:

Storm of Anxiety

People can develop an overpowering, life-limiting fear or phobia of just about anything from garlic to vampires. While some of these are pretty unreasonable, like the fear of the color yellow, others seem quite reasonable, like the fear of poisonous snakes or severe weather.

With so much wild or unusual weather in the headlines around the world, it is not surprising that fear of severe weather is becoming more and more common. While it’s not up there with really common phobias, like fear of dentists, spiders, public speaking, or heights, a 2006 study at the University of Iowa surveyed 139 adults and found that over half of them felt panicked by big storms and only a quarter felt no fears at all about the weather.

If you live in say, Galveston or Key West, being panicked over the approach of a big storm sounds quite sane. But sometimes a reasonable fear of weather can blossom into a case of lilapsophobia, a phobia or fear of storms. Phobias are irrational, intense fears that can become so extreme that sufferers’ lives are impacted. Worrying about a real weather threat may not do much to prevent the danger, but it is normal. When you take that worry and use it to understand the risks and the steps you can take to minimize them, then it’s healthy. But when worry turns to phobia, the terror and anxiety can be more dangerous to one’s happiness and health than a hurricane.

Apparently, people can develop phobias to just about anything. Phobia list includes everything from ablutophobia (the fear of washing or bathing) to zoophobia (fear of animals). In the middle, you can find a whole host of specific weather fears including these:

• Ancraophobia or Anemophobia - Fear of wind
• Astraphobia, Astrapophobia, Ceraunophobia, Keraunophobia - Fear of thunder and lightning
• Auroraphobia- Fear of Northern lights
• Frigophobia, Cheimaphobia, Cheimatophobia, Psychrophobia - Fear of cold or cold things
• Homichlophobia or Nebulaphobia - Fear of fog
• Lilapsophobia - Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes
• Ombrophobia or Pluviophobia - Fear of rain or of being rained on
• Pagophobia- Fear of ice or frost
• Phengophobia- Fear of daylight or sunshine
• Tonitrophobia- Fear of thunder

If your phengophobia has you hiding all day in a dark room, you’ll need to seek professional treatment. There are desensitization therapies and anti-anxiety medications that can bring relief. Hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can also help people break the cycle of phobic anxieties.

Meanwhile, if your worries about the weather are more in the line of scientific curiosity, the treatment is education. The more you know, the better you’ll feel. (See more in the Washington Times story. )

Weather Check Quiz Question 2: If you told us a hurricane the size of Texas was heading for the San Francisco Bay Area, we wouldn’t need a raging case of lilapsophobia to panic. We’d pack up the dog and cat and be outta here fast. But when Hurricane Ike was bearing down on Texas, 140,000 people didn't evacuate, despite orders to do so. Why do people ignore hurricane evacuation warnings? Pick the top seven excuses.
1. “We have no where to go.”
2. “The government said to evacuate during the last storm, then nothing happened.”
3. “We can ride it out. We’ve ridden out lots of hurricanes.”
4. “We live in a windproof, self-contained, bio-ark.”
5. “Even if it does hit our neighborhood, we’ll be safe in the house.”
6. “We need to stay to protect our property from looters, or even the storm itself.”
7. “We are suicidal.”
8. “We’re just tired of hurricane warnings. We don’t want to pack up again. It’s the 'same ole, same ole.'”
9. “I don’t understand what the warning. Can you repeat in my language?”
10. “The dog ate my homework.”
(Click here for answers.)


MAILBAG:

Fan Mail from Moose Country

Bryan and Suzanne Flagg publish the Northcountry News & Mountainside Guide in Warren, New Hampshire, better knows as Moose Country. When they decided to offer their readers local weather information, they purchased a nice new weather station from, uh oh, a competitor! But don’t worry! They soon realized their error, replaced it with a new Vantage Pro2, and now everybody’s happy!

Bryan told us, “About a year ago, we made the mistake of purchasing a [weather station from one of your competitors]. From the day it arrived, we were never happy with it. Not only were the instructions terrible, but it literally took us an entire day to put it all together before it even went up! The rain gauge stopped working after about four months. Well, we just upgraded and bought a Vantage Pro2 to replace it and I want to tell you what a pleasure it was to install and what a great unit it is. It was together, up and programmed in under two hours - and that was taking my time! To top it off, you folks included the lithium battery for the sensor! Who ever heard of such a thing nowadays? The anemometer is an important feature for us, and the first one just didn't cut it. Due to the fact that [competitor’s] anemometer was slow in responding and reporting back to the console for the wind speed, we missed some mighty good gusts. Yours is quick responding and follows the wind almost instantly! Perfect.

“We get some pretty brutal weather here in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and I am looking forward to finally having a unit that will give us correct data and quickly.

“Thank you for such a wonderful product and a very pleasurable experience.”

You’re quite welcome, Flaggs!

Weather Check Quiz Question 3: We’ve been diagnosed with a pathological chronic lying condition. That means everything we say is a lie. We also love moose. Here are some moose facts. You have to decide if they are all lies, because, as we said, we always lie, or all true, because as we said we always lie and we said we always lie, so we always tell the truth: There is a life size chocololate moose in Maine. You can buy moose-dropping swizzle sticks in Alaska. Moose calls sound like our Uncle Harold playing his antique tuba while down the well without his hearing aid. (Click here for answers.)

Fan Mail from Next Door

Doug Davis’ Vantage Pro didn’t have to travel far from its birthplace here in Hayward, California. It lives on Doug’s deck just up the road in Oakland!

“Back in 2003,” Doug told us, “I bought a Davis Vantage Pro weather station. I was immediately happy with it’s quality and ease of use. For five years the system has been absolutely reliable and only just now had its first problem when the main sensors stopped transmitting. So I pulled it down and did an overhaul on it – there was popped solder joint on the solar panel, so I fixed that and replaced all of the batteries and it is good as new! I’m impressed that with all the heat, wind, and cold the system has been exposed to in 1800+ days of weather that is the only problem I’ve had with the unit. The wireless anemometer has yet to fail – it’s still on the roof transmitting away. In this day and age where it seem many electronics won’t last two years in a room temperature environment, I am truly impressed with the quality and durability of your instruments. Five years of uninterrupted service is incredible - it’s great to see an American manufacture deliver such a robust product. Please don’t cut your design standards in any way! “

Doug had a question for our tech team as well: Does Davis offer an upgrade service that can take an original Vantage Pro (sensors and console) and replace the electronics with the new radio technology?

Our Techies say, unfortunately, no, we don’t offer any "upgrade path" to convert your Vantage Pro into a Vantage Pro2. But we still support the original Vantage Pro, if it should need a repair. Functionally, there is not a lot of difference between the two units, but the Vantage Pro2 does offer longer range and more resistance to RF interference. (Sounds like Doug’s original Vantage Pro is doing just fine!)

Doug and Bryan, we hear these sentiments all the time. But it never gets old.

Eagle Eye Tom Wonders What “Pressure Ridge” Means

Thomas Leahy of Gaston, Oregon gets the Eagle Eye Trophy this month. He picked up a typo that was kind of glaring (which leads us to ask, what were the rest of you doing?) in the last E-Newsletter.

Thomas wrote, “The article on air pressure this month was informative. I think you had a typo in it where you said ‘Rising air therefore, leads to low pressure; sinking air leads to an area of low pressure.’ I suppose 1,000 people have told you about it by now. If I followed everything correctly, you meant to say, ‘Rising air therefore, leads to low pressure; sinking air leads to an area of high pressure.’"

Yes, indeed, that was what our fingers thought they were typing and our proofreaders thought they read. But the article also got Thomas to thinking about his own weather in northwest Oregon and how it is affected by pressure gradients.

“We had a short heat wave for a few days with temperatures up to 97 to 103 °F or so. Had us all sweating and sweltering for two or three days. The NWS people told us it was due to a big ridge of high pressure over the Pacific Northwest and an attendant offshore air flow (so we got no marine cooling). I'm a little bit confused in how to relate these facts to the data from my Vantage Pro2, which showed especially hot days on August 15, 16, and 17, but… looking at the barometer it seems that all that time the pressure was falling.

“So I am supposing that when the weather service tell us there is a ‘ridge of high pressure’, that it is relative to an area of lower pressure somewhere else - since the pressure was much higher on August 10, but the temperature was much lower that day. I did notice on Monday, August 17 that the pressure began falling sharply in the afternoon, and by Sunday night - Monday morning we were having thunderstorms and then cool cloudy showery weather, so there was a clear correlation between that shift in barometric pressure and the change in the weather.

“I guess I thought that the ‘big ridge of high pressure’ would show itself as a big spike on the barometric chart, but that wasn't the case. If you'd like to do a follow-up barometric pressure article, or respond to my email, I'd love to learn more!”

Our meteorologist, Jason Karvelot, explains it this way: The corrected statement above is generally true. The high pressure ridge the National Weather Service was referring to was really there. The ridge was high up in the atmosphere, so your Vantage Pro2 at the surface wasn’t seeing it. Hot surface air temperatures can result in low pressure at the surface referred to as “thermal lows,” or if elongated, “thermal troughs.” Cold surface air temperatures can results in thermal highs. Both are generally very shallow and only appear at the surface. Your Vantage Pro2 was seeing the thermal low pressure at the surface.

If you go up in the atmosphere, you will usually find the opposite type of pressure system: High pressure above thermal lows; low pressure above thermal highs. Both are the result of how temperature affects the density of air: hot air is less dense and tends to rise; cold air is more dense and tends to sink. These systems and usually local or regional in nature, not associated with frontal systems and do not produce weather, as in the case you cited.

You can see this if you compare surface and 500-millibar height contour weather maps from the day in question. These are from the Daily Weather Map published by the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (At 500-mb, half the atmosphere is below and half above the point of observation. This is about three to five miles above sea level).

In the 500-millibar contour height map of August 15, you can see the high the NWS discussed, hanging over the Pacific Northwest and bringing high temperatures.

But the surface map shows a different scene altogether. Here we see high pressures much further to the east, with relative lows over Portland. (These maps are fascinating! You can see them for every day here .)

Thermal lows typically appear over the desert of California and Arizona in the summertime where intense heating at the earth’s surface occurs. Similarly, a thermal trough typically appears over California’s “Central Valley” in the summertime where similar intense heating occurs. Less noticeable on weather maps is the similar drop in pressure during an intense heat wave in other locations. During heat waves here in the Bay Area, we always see a drop in air pressure, which on a weather map, shows up as the Central Valley’s thermal trough pushing closer to the coastline. This trough extended into your region as shown on the weather map. As the heat wave subsides, the trough retreats inland.

Weather Check Quiz Question 4: In a recent interview, US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said that you can see Russia from her home state of Alaska. Is this true? What does it have to do with the weather? (Click here for answers.)

“Thanks for the Plug!”…

…wrote Dr. Kevin TeBeest, who appeared in our last issue, checking out his rooftop Vantage Pro2.

“I wondered why the number of hits to my weather website was higher than usual this evening,” Dr. TeBeest wrote. “I then checked my email and read your current Weather Club E-News and saw that you mentioned the Flint Journal article (with photo!) in which I was featured. What a fantastic surprise. “

And yes, I do indeed assign occasional weather related problems in the math courses I teach. In fact, today I just finished writing a project for a course in computational mathematics that investigates pressure vs. altitude in the troposphere using a model that accounts for the temperature's variation with altitude. I've used a similar model for the mesosphere and thermosphere as the basis for other projects.”

(Dr. TeBeest, the dog ate our five-page analysis of the pressure in the troposphere as it relates to altitude, with real-time micro adjustments for high pressure ridges and thermal downdrafts.)

Vantage Pro2s Make the News:

“Ray Said…” Commonly Overheard by Weather Watchers in North Carolina

Ray Russell got a Vantage Pro for Christmas years ago. Whether that was the beginning of his passion or just a symptom of weathernutitis, he has used it to build a reputation as a particularly good forecaster. The Appalachian State University professor is rather famous, at least among the weather fans in western North Carolina. According to the Smoky Mountain News, his website, Ray's Weather, is the most widely read media outlet in the mountain region.

The story lauds Ray’s six-person 50-station team for its “astonishingly accurate forecasts.”

“To see evidence of this, look no further than the campus of Appalachian State University, where it all started. It’s easy to tell who has scanned Ray’s Weather forecast — they’re the ones carrying a rain jacket on a crystal clear morning, or layering a tank top under a heavy sweater with flip flops sticking out of their backpack.”

Oooh, praise like that can make a meteorologist’s heart race with joy!

Weather Check Quiz Question 5: Why did meteorologists dub recent tropical storm Fay, “Freaky Fay?”

YOU'RE BRILLIANT!:

Answers to Quiz Questions

Question 1: B. European scientists have triggered electrical activity in thunder clouds by firing laser pulses into a thunderstorm. They were able to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity. No lightning yet, but they believe that's next! (Why would scientists want to create lightning? To study the "mechanisms underlying lightning strikes, and test lightning sensitivity of aircraft and critical infrastructure such as power lines.") See the article on Scientific Blogging's website. (Back to stories.)

Question 2: All but 4, 7 and 10. How do we know? Because someone asked!

After Hurricane Rita, Rebecca Morss of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado; and Fuqing Zhang, Director of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A & M University, set up a student research study at Texas A & M. The students asked people in the paths of Rita and Katrina why they did or did not evacuate. Their results yielded up some non-surprises, like the fact that language barriers and lack of resources can make some people unaware of the risks or unable to evacuate. But there were also some surprises, like the fact that only 15% of those who evacuated did so primarily because of an evacuation order, and that people based their decision of whether or not to evacuate on the storm’s category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, forecasts of wind speed, and storm surge, as well as their own past experience with storms and their own neighborhoods. You can read “Linking Meteorological Education to Reality” in the April 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. (Back to stories.)

Question 3: We told you, we always lie, so we lied when we said we always lie. So these are all true. Len Libby chocolates in Scarborough, Maine is home to Lenny the moose, the world's only life-size chocolate moose--made of 1,700 pounds of milk chocolate! The droppings of the moose are dried and shellacked, then turned into many craft items for sale as novelty gifts. Most gift shops in Alaska carry at least a few items made from moose droppings. Here, hear for yourself. (Back to stories.)

Question 4: Yes, on some days. It’s a stretch though, Governor. According to an article in Slate by Nina Shen Rastogi, there are two little, empty islands, Big Diomede and Little Diomede, out in the middle of the Bering Strait. One is Russian, one is American. Since the islands are less than two miles apart, you really can see one from the other. But here’s where weather gets in the way. The Diomede Islands are usually socked in by thick fog. (However, from mid-December until early spring, you can just walk from one to the other …) (Bonus: Click here for a cool calculator to figure out just how far you can see from any point.)(Back to stories.)

Question 5: Because forecasters trying desperately to predict Fay’s behavior were confounded at every turn. Fay tore through Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Florida Keys (that’s one), and then veered into the Gulf of Mexico. At that point, forecasters predicted she would become a hurricane. But Fay didn’t. She calmed down as she hit Florida again at Naples (that’s two) as a more subdued tropical storm with just 60 mph winds on August 19. At that point, forecasters predicted she’d follow typical tropical storm and hurricane pattern and lose strength. But Fay didn’t. Instead her winds increased to over 65 mph and she started to develop an eyewall – signs of strengthening. Then forecasters predicted she would zip up the east coast of Florida. But Fay didn’t. The next day, she stopped dead in her tracks and just drenched the area around Melbourne, Florida. Most storms systems in the Northern Hemisphere produce the heaviest rain on their north side. But Fay didn’t. She pulled in winds from the southwest and used them to dump water from the south side. Forecasters expected her to continue up the coast. But Fay didn’t. She moved out over the Atlantic, then came back to Florida at Daytona Beach (that’s three), crossed over the state to the panhandle then skirted the corner of the Gulf to reenter Florida at Carrabelle (that’s four), narrowly staying onshore as she whipped over Panama City (that’s almost five). Most tropical storms and hurricanes hit a state once. But Fay didn’t. She holds the record for hitting the same state FOUR times. She holds another record as the first storm to make landfall seven times. Fay was, unfortunately, not freaky in her viciousness. She killed 23 people in the Caribbean and 14 in Florida.

Please continue to send your comments, weather URL's, and story suggestions to news@davisnet.com. We look forward to getting your comments and any responses you have to the Davis E-News. Member participation is what keeps the Davis E-News alive and kicking.

Well, that’s it for this edition. You’ll be hearing from us again next month!

The Davis Weather Club E-Newsletter is published by Davis Instruments.
© 2008 Davis Instruments Corp. All rights reserved.

Vantage Pro2, Vantage Pro2 Plus, Vantage Pro, Vantage Pro Plus, Weather Monitor, Weather Wizard, WeatherLink, WeatherLinkIP, Weather Envoy, and Perception are trademarks of Davis Instruments Corp.

If you would like to receive the Weather Club e-newsletter via email every month, sign up now.