That’s how many you have to find the perfect holiday gift for your weather buff who has everything. But you’ve come to the right place because we happen to have some great ideas – and they don’t even involve a trip to the mall.
1. A second Vantage Pro2 Console/Receiver. Is your Vantage Pro2 console in the den by the computer where you can’t see it from the kitchen? You need a second console! The two consoles will both pick up the data packets from your Vantage Pro2 ISS outside, but they will report inside temperature and humidity for their respective rooms. Maybe a third for the garage? A fourth for your next door neighbor?
2. A Weather Envoy. Almost like getting a second console! Put the Envoy in the den where it will receive packets and upload to your computer. Move the console out to the living room!
3. WeatherLinkIP
. Your weather buff will have hours of fun looking at his/her own weather data, painlessly uploaded to the Internet.
See how easy that was?
WEATHER STATIONS IN ACTION:
Ike vs Galveston: Vantage Pros Did Their Best
Aaron Swerdlin had just replaced the humidity sensor in his Vantage Pro in front of his house in Upper Galveston Bay. It was working just fine until Ike swept into town, dropping off about 30” of water in Aaron’s living room.
“We lost everything in the house, we lost our boat house and pier,” Aaron wrote. “The weather station stayed up until about 10:00 P.M. Friday night, five hours before the eye passed over the house (it clocked 92 knot winds).
“Ike was a storm surge that none of us in Upper Galveston Bay ever really expected (we're about 18 miles north of Galveston Island on the mainland). And it was only a Category 2. If we ever get a Cat 4 or 5 along with the surge it will be catastrophic. For many, even Ike was catastrophic. We lost everything inside our home and garage and had quite a bit of damage to the home as well. But just two blocks further south along the coast there are homes missing -- not just a pile a rubble, the houses are actually missing. The road fell into the bay in two places in our neighborhood and the debris is everywhere. I've either lived full time or part time in the Upper Galveston Bay area since I was born and I've never seen a surge as far inland as Ike brought us. I sure hope this is a one-time event.
“Now I just want to find the outside unit from my weather station so that I can get the station back online as soon as we have electricity. My wife and daughter joke with me about being a weather geek. I just tell them that when I grow up I'm going back to school to become a weather scientist so they better not make too much fun of me.”
Here’s Aaron’s backyard Thursday afternoon just before he and his family left their Upper Galveston Bay house for the last time.
This is about nine hours before the eye passed over the house.
“There are piers that go out about 300' into the bay. Usually, the water is five feet. under the piers. In the picture you can't even see the pier,” Aaron wrote.
“Monday afternoon when they let us down there for the first time.” Wasn’t there a pier and a boat house at the end of that walkway when they left?
David Gutacker’sVantage Pro2 on his beach house on Galveston Island was right in the path of Ike’s terrible storm surge, but it fared a little better than Aaron’s. Not only did it continue sending packets (high wind speed of 96 mph!), but when the Gutackers returned to assess the damage, they found the Vantage Pro2 completely intact, missing only it’s rain collector, which was sitting on the front porch like a lost pup!
Dave’s beach house is built on 15-foot pilings – which seems like plenty of clearance. But Ike’s storm surge was predicted to be 25’! Luckily, it rolled in with a mere 15’ of ocean water, removed the garage and all things in it, but just barely left the upper house untouched. See that nice open area under the house? That used to be a garage. And see that weather station on the roof? Still working.
Weather Check Quiz Question 1: A Hurricane Warning means the storm is likely to strike within
A. 8 hours
B. 24 hours
C. 36 hoursD. 48 hours (Click here for answers.)
One of our engineers thinks he may be haunted by Vantage Pro2! On a trip to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, far from Davis Instruments and his work, Bruce Walter found himself looking at a Vantage Pro2, which was looking at the weather along the Pikes Peak Cog Railway.
Pikes Peak is known for its beauty and the awe-inspiring rock formations around it. But at 14,110 it comes in at 31st of the 54 mountains in Colorado over 14,000 feet. It’s hard to be a super-star mountain in Colorado!
Here’s a cool factoid we found on their site
: When traveling up Pikes Peak (or any mountain) ascending 1000 feet is like traveling 600 miles to the north. The temperature drops about 3.5 degrees, and different life zones are experienced. So, in general, the top of the Peak is 30 degrees colder than at the station in Manitou.
If you’re ever in the Pikes Peak neighborhood, be sure to say hello to our Vantage Pro2!
Weather Check Quiz Question 2:True or False: Pikes Peak is the most visited mountain in the world. (Click here for answers.)
If hurricane Ike taught you anything as an aspiring meteorologist it is this: the most deadly part of a hurricane is often not the wind, but the storm surge.
Storm surge is the abnormal rise of the ocean level. As a hurricane travels across open water, its high winds push a pile of water ahead of it. If the storm is small and over open ocean, the piled up water can dissipate to the sides. But as the storm approaches land, and especially if it is very large, the water has no where to go but up on the land.
While the pile of water is caused mostly by the hurricane winds, the storm’s low pressure also contributes. Low pressure in the center of a storm can raise sea level by half a meter. (A drop of one millibar in air pressure produces a rise of one centimeter in sea level.)
When a storm surge occurs at high tide, the effect can be even more dramatic and dangerous. The combination of storm surge and astronomical tide is called storm tide.
In the case of Ike, the storm surge was what the NWS really worried about. As a Category 2 (one mph short of Category 3), Ike's winds weren't as high as many hurricanes. But Ike's vast size, 600 miles across, and its track toward Houston caused emergency officials to order evacuations over a large area.
The National Hurricane center, FEMA, and NOAA all predict storm surge using the SLOSH model developed by National Weather Service. SLOSH (which stands for Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) takes into account the storm's pressure, size, forward speed, track, winds.
These storm facts are combined with a model of a specific geographic area, called a SLOSH basin to give a detailed prediction of the size of the storm surge for an approaching storm. The most "iffy" part of the model is the storm track, as Mother Nature is known for changing storm tracks without warning. If the track is wrong, the model will be less accurate. SLOSH also takes into account astronomical tides, but not rainfall or wind driven waves, which have to be added in. Its accuracy is about plus or minus 20%.
SLOSH Models have helped meteorologists come up with some storm surge generalizations. For example, when the sea bed drops steeply offshore, the storm surge will be lower but there will be more powerful waves. If the shelf is gentle and the water offshore shallow, the storm surge will be higher and the waves smaller. SLOSH Models show that the highest surges usually occur to the right of the storm and that fast moving storms pack higher surges along open coasts, while slow moving storms bring greater flooding inside bays and estuaries.
The SLOSH basin models cover the US East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, parts of Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and some basins in China and India.
As Ike showed us, a storm does not have to be a Category 4 or 5 to be deadly when it comes to storm surge. Even a tropical depression, when all the conditions are right (or wrong, you might say) can cause a devastating storm surge. Ernesto, which had been a Category 1 over Haiti, had been downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit the Chesapeake Bay in September of 2001. With winds at only 40 knots, it still brought storm tides of up to six feet.
Ike's 21.5 foot storm tide was a record setter as the highest recorded for any Category 2 storm, and it came close to Carla, a Category 4 when it made landfall, which had a 22-foot storm tide. Both pale in comparison to the Storm Surge Champion, Cyclone Mahina, which brought a 43-foot storm tide to Bathurst Bay, Australia in 1899. But the most evil of all was Cyclone Bhola that struck Bangladesh and West Bengal in November, 1970, killing up to 500,000 people with vast flooding.
So should you consider a hurricane's predicted storm surge with as much interest as its predicted wind speeds? Ask Aaron and Dave (see Weather Stations in Actions, above).
Weather Check Quiz Question 3: The SLOSH models have given meteorologists (who seem to love a good acronym) which two tools to help them in predicting storm surge?
A. MEOW
B. WOOF
C. DARN
E. MOM (Click here for answers.)
TECH TIPS: A Tip of the Hat to our Support Team
Our Tech Support guys are the best in the West, and elsewhere, we think. They know Davis’s products inside and out, and have the big advantage of working alongside the people who design, produce, and repair our weather stations. That might not sound terribly unusual, but in many other companies, the Tech Support team is not even in the same state, much less the same building, as the manufacturing operation. (We hate to say it, but some are not even in the same hemisphere!)
And our customers reap the rewards. In fact, sometimes we think our tech team should have its own fan club.
John Jennings of Hillsboro, Oregon, recently sent us this, rather typical if we do say so ourselves, note of appreciation:
“I recently ‘had to’ update to Windows Vista to accommodate the requirements for my wife's new job, and found that I just had an ancient version of WeatherLink software that would make ‘upgrading’ difficult. Thanks for sending me the new WeatherLink 5.8.1 for Windows DVD. It made it easy to reinstall the software on my new Windows Vista partition. I had no problem with the reinstallation, and after moving my weather data from the old to new directory and partition, the weather summaries were accessible.
“Even after several years and moves, the Vantage Pro remains durable and relatively trouble free. When I have had questions or needed support, a quick call to Davis has always solved my issue. It doesn't seem to really matter who you get on the phone in your technical support department; I have always received courteous, accurate solutions to problems, and an unrushed friendly voice always seems to answer whenever I have called. Please accept my humble recognition for all of you who answer the phones. Your technical skills and positive and open communication abilities continues to make my investment in your weather station a real treasure and value day, after day, after day.”
Nicely said, John. Our tech team gets all teary-eyed when they hear things like that! (Bunch of softies, really!) Of course, it helps that Vantage Pro and Vantage Pro2 are so well built!
MAILBAG: Here’s a Birdie Nightmare
Rich Setlak of Gretna, Nebraska, is quite popular with birds. They really enjoyed the avian Porta-Potty he installed just for their use a couple of years ago.
“The first year I had my Vantage Pro2,” Rich writes, “I never had a problem, but this past spring, the birds have been a real nuisance. I tried using reflective tape, to no avail. Finally, I found a solution.....bird spikes !!! I made a square-ring of them around the top of the collector, and I haven't had a problem since!”
On behalf of the poor, innocent birds in Rich’s neighborhood, who have been forced to find other accommodations, we say, how would you feel if someone put spikes around your toilet?
Weather Check Quiz Question 4: We've all seen a bird lazily flying right into the wind, wings outstretched, no flapping needed. How do they get anywhere? (Click here for answers.)
Vantage Pro2s Make the News:
Ray’s Weather Gets More Attention We weren't the only ones enjoying the story of North Carolinian Ray Russell, the Appalachian State University computer science professor and his internet company, "Ray's Weather Center". (See last month). The Mountain Xpress also ran a nice story about Ray. There's also a nifty video of Jeff Cox, one of Ray's meteorologists, telling us all what we already know, that the Vantage Pro is a fantastic weather station!
The Xpress story mentions Ray’s company's fun-loving spirit. "For example, the Oct. 2 forecast for Asheville (the day of the vice presidential debate) began like this: 'The weather is so easy today, even a vice-presidential candidate could do it.'"
Students in Carthage Are Into Technology As part of an effort to integrate technology in the classrooms in Carthage, New York, teachers and administrators there are teaching keyboard skills in the third grade and engineering in the ninth. This summer, they added weather technology by installing a Vantage Pro2 Plus on the roof of the high school.
"'It gives us much more accurate weather readings and we're able to manipulate the data and save it,' said Zach J. Miller, who is one of the three earth science teachers running the weather center. 'We have all the information displayed right here in the science department so that all of the kids can see the current weather conditions.'
"When the students learn about weather in their classes, Mr. Miller said, they will be able to access the data to learn about how the conditions and past weather affect where they live.
"'It gives them that local connection,' he said.' It gives them first-hand knowledge that they can watch what's really happening right here.'"
Weather Check Quiz Question 5: Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Answer this question, then ask a fifth grader if you are right: When water boils and bubbles form and rise to the surface, what do the bubbles consist of?
”
YOU'RE BRILLIANT!:
Answers to Quiz Questions
Question 1: B. 24 hours. Along the east coast of the United States, the warning is accompanied by a probability of the chance of the hurricane’s center passing within 65 miles (105 KM) of the community. (Back to stories.)
Question 2: False, but close! It is second only to Mount Fuji in Tokyo. We told you it was beautiful! A half a million people reach the summit of Pikes Peak every year, many aboard the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Thousands RUN to the top and down in the Annual Pikes Peak Marathon! (Back to stories.)
Question 3: A, and E. MEOW stands for Maximum Envelope Of Water. It is a sort of worst-case scenario for every part and every condition in a specific basin. "Envelope" refers to the maximum height the water reaches at any point in time at every grid cell in the SLOSH basin for a given hypothetical storm. MEOW is the set of the highest surge values at each grid location for a given storm category, forward speed, and direction of motion. The NHC has one MEOW for each storm category, direction, forward motion and tide level. MOM stands for maximum of MEOWs. There are five MOMs per basin, one for each category. (Back to stories.)
Question 4: According to Journey North's “How Birds Fly” , "soaring birds that wish to stay aloft without flapping in normal wind usually fly into the wind for lift. But that same wind that holds them up slows their forward movements. In order to get somewhere, soaring birds make delicate adjustments to turn slightly now and then. They gain lift for a while and then lose altitude as they head where they actually want, and then gain lift again. This is why gulls usually fly in a more zig-zaggy pattern than many other birds.”(Back to stories.)
Question 5: If your answer is something like “oxygen,” “air,” or “hydrogen,” your fifth-grader gets to stay up an extra hour playing video games while you read his or her science textbook. (It’s steam, or water vapor, like duh.)
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
Davis!
Each month after the E-News goes out, we receive messages back. Sometimes the messages are in response to a story we shared; other times they are a request for help of some kind. We read all the emails, answer those we can, and pass the rest on to the appropriate departments.We think you should know, though, that if you're interested in the fastest possible reply, news@davisnet.com may not be the best place to send your message. Questions about how things work should be addressed to tech support directly at support@davisnet.com. For general information about the products contact sales@davisnet.com. To request a catalog, you’ll find links for catalog requests on our web site at www.davisnet.com/contact/catalog.asp.
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!
