Vantage Pro2 looks right at home on the greens at the FUTURES Tour, the “Road to the LPGA.”

Well, maybe not cure your slice, whatever that means, but it has helped some pros improve their game. Davis has teamed up with Communications Concepts Inc. (CCI), of Florida, to provide real-time weather data during live golf broadcasts and other sporting events.

CCI uses the Vantage Pro2 on the Duramed FUTURES Tour, which is aired on Sun Sports. (Sun Sports is delivered to approximately five and half million homes on cable in Florida and another half million homes on nation wide on DirecTV.) The Duramed FUTURES Tour is known as “the Road to the LPGA” and since 1999, it has been designated as the official developmental tour of the LPGA.

“The Vantage Pro2 gives us a way to put the viewer on the green with the golfer, and to know the real-time conditions while the athlete is taking swing,” said Jim Lewis, a VP with CCI. “With the small package and portability, we can put stations just off the green for our remote broadcasts and monitor current and changing conditions. The broadcast commentator can hold the console in his hands and communicate the weather conditions as often as he likes.”

Weather Check Quiz Question 2: If you’re waiting for the slow-poke foursome ahead of you on the golf course, and you look up in the sky and see an upside-down rainbow, are you standing on your head? (Click here for answers.)

Vantage Pro2 on the Slopes

Just a couple of fun photos of Vantage Pro2s making skiing in Poland even more fun.

Adam Skowronski sent these pics of a Vantage Pro2 getting all spiffed up to welcome Polish skiers to the mountaintop in Myslenice, Poland, and the other welcoming them back down to the parking lot in Bialka Tatrzanska. He also sent along a video clip of his giant (130 cm x 12 cm) display of the data. Skiers can check out the mountaintop weather from the lodge. Nice! (Adam, is that you up on those ladders?)

TECH TIPS :

Changing Weather Units on Your Vantage Pro2 Console

We know you can spend long, happy minutes perusing your Vantage Pro2 console to see what's going on in your backyard. But sometimes you want even more! What if you want to see your barometric pressure in hectoPascals or your wind speed in knots? What if you want to see rainfall in inches and millimeters? You can!

First, you need to select the weather variable you want to change. If the variable is printed on a key, just press that key to select it. If the variable is printed on the console above a key, press and release 2ND, then quickly press the key below to select the variable.

Next press then press and release the 2ND button, then press UNITS. The selected variable's units change. As you repeat this process, the display will cycle through the units available. For example, for barometric pressure you will see millibars (mb), millimeters (mm), inches (in), and hectoPascals (hPa). Wind speed can be seen in miles per hour (mph), kilometers per hour (kph), meters per second (mps), and knots (knots).

Here's a really good tip: we got this information from the Vantage Pro2 Console Users Manual.

Weather Check Quiz Question 3: You've filed your Users Manual somewhere so safe, no one can find it. What can you do? (Click here for answers.)


WEATHER 101:

The “D” Word

We in the Bay Area, along with many Arizonans, Hawaiians, Texans, Wyomingans (Wyomans?), as well as Mexicans and Aussies, are very familiar with the “D” word: drought. One of our favorite local meteorologists, Jan Null, Certified Consulting Meteorologist and proprietor of Golden Gate Weather Services , sent us a very enlightening explanation that we thought you’d all enjoy as well. Thanks, Jan!

With the “D” word a headline in just about every Bay Area newspaper lately, we’re starting to worry about dried out lawns this summer. The word “drought” does not have a universal definition; it’s much more complicated than just a deficit of rain or snow in a particular place. The condition is also largely dependent on the number and type of water-users, and whether only local water is used or if it is imported from other regions. Consequently, extended moisture deficiency can be thought of in terms of meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or socioeconomic drought.

The American Meteorological Society Glossary of Meteorology defines drought this way: “A period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance. Drought is a relative term, therefore any discussion in terms of precipitation deficit must refer to the particular precipitation-related activity that is under discussion. For example, there may be a shortage of precipitation during the growing season resulting in crop damage (agricultural drought ), or during the winter runoff and percolation season affecting water supplies (hyrdrological drought). Compare dry spell; see absolute drought, partial drought.”

Meteorological droughts are usually defined by the departure from normal precipitation on a monthly or seasonal time scale. Hydrological drought is primarily a function of the effect of precipitation on surface and subsurface water supply, but is also influenced by such factors as local water usage and storage.

Probably the most localized and fastest responding variety of drought is agricultural drought, which can vary from crop to crop and is measured on time scales as short as a week or two. How all of the above interact with human activity is reflected in a catch-all term: socioeconomic drought. That term is essentially a balance sheet of the supply and demand of water on residential, industrial and agricultural usage as well as its impact on hydroelectric power and energy conservation.

For Californians, the bottom line is this: coming off several very wet years that topped off most reservoirs and groundwater tables it is premature to say universally that California is in a drought. However, there are local and even some regional interests that are facing deficits and would at least qualify as “drought impacted.”

Good links from Jan: U.S. Drought Monitor, has been widely featured the last couple of days but it should be used with caution as it is primarily an index of agricultural drought. It does not factor in such important things as existing water supplies, population, and usage patterns. Californians can check out: California Climate Tracker and California DWR Hydrologic Conditions.

Weather Check Quiz Question 4: Drought is a natural hazard that has affected more people in North America than any other natural hazard. True or False? (Click here for answers.)

MAILBAG:

Maybe We Should Stop Enclosing “Liva-Snaps” in Our Packaging

A dog-loving Davis customer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sent us a Ziploc bag full of shredded WeatherLink bits and pieces including a download cable in several pieces, and a data logger with suspicious bite marks on it.

The note enclosed read: “This is kind of funny! The (Mac) WeatherLink unit that you sent me via UPS was somehow dropped over a fence by the UPS delivery person to where my two friendly Labradors live and was destroyed. (Chewed to pieces!). UPS left a note on my door saying that the package had fallen over the fence by mistake. What do I do now?”

We sent him a brand new WeatherLink. But our tech staff couldn’t resist testing the data logger. It worked just fine! Neither rain, nor sleet, nor doggie slobber will keep our WeatherLink from its appointed duty!

Goodbye Ice!

Kevin Seuferer, of West Point, Idaho, sent us this beautiful farewell-to-winter shot of his Vantage Pro after a January ice storm.

Good bye, ice. (Hello, hurricanes?)

Weather Check Quiz Question 5: You know that ice storms are caused by freezing rain. But freezing rain can happen during a snow storm and be no big deal. What's the difference between an ice storm and an episode of freezing rain?

Extra Credit: What are the two kinds of icing that can occur during an ice storm?

Extra Extra Credit: What's the difference between sleet and freezing rain? (Click here for answers.)

Pilot Remembers the Good Old “Zero” Days

Jack Dorfinger waxed nostalgic after the last two E-News’ discussion of altimeter setting for pilots. “When I grew up it was standard for the local pilots flying mostly in Cubs to set the altimeter to zero like Randy's balloon pilots. We just flew the pattern or made a weather check or went up around our house. We were probably back to the airport in an hour so the setting didn't change much. It was easier to go back to zero than to use the field elevation.”

YOU'RE BRILLIANT!:

Question 1: According the Skywalk website, it is the world’s largest bolt! Click for a picture of the big old bolt. (Back to stories.)

Question 2: Not necessarily! There is a rare light phenomenon called a circumzenithal arc which appears as an upside down, “smiley” rainbow. The San Francisco Chronicle carried a fun story about how Andrew G. Saffas, a Concord, California, artist and photographer captured one of these rare sights on film. (We were especially pleased that some rare weather event happened in the sort-of-weather-mundane Bay Area!) Check out the Chronicle’s Science Editor David Perlman’s article. (Back to stories.)

Question 3: Hey, you neatnik, you can always get to it (and all our manuals, application notes, FAQs, etc.) on our website!. For a list of all the manuals, click on Support from our home page, then Weather Support (on the side bar), then Instruction Manuals. (Hint: there are quite a few manuals up there. It helps if you know your station's product number.) (Back to stories.)

Question 4: According to the NOAA’s “North American Drought: A Paleo Perspective”, that’s true. “The cost of losses due to drought in the United States averages $6-8 billion every year, but range as high as $39 billion for the three year drought of 1987-1989, which was the most costly natural hazard documented in U.S. history. Continuing uncertainty in drought prediction contributes to crop insurance payouts of over $175 million per year in western Canada.” .(Back to stories.)

Question 5: According to Dr. Keith C. Heidorn's article, “Ice Storms: Beauty Amid Destruction,” it's a matter of duration and extent. "Ice storms generally last 12 hours or more, accumulate ice several centimeters thick, and affect an area ranging from a few square kilometers to regions as large as several states/provinces."

Extra Credit: Ice storms produce either of two kinds of icing: glaze ice or rime ice. Glaze is a transparent layer of ice that forms on vertical and horizontal services and clings tenaciously to any surface on which it forms. Rime is milky, less dense and not as clingy - so it is less damaging. (Source: Heidorn's “Ice Storms: Beauty Amid Destruction)

Extra Extra Credit: Sleet is already frozen when it hits, freezing rain freezes after impact. Dr. Heidorn's article has a great explanation of how rain becomes freezing rain, how ice storms occur, and lots more on the subject of ice storms. If you'd like a little more on the subject, there is a great first-person description of the week-long ice storm that devastated Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada in January of 1998 at Innovative Technology. That storm dealt out more than 80 hours of freezing rain, killing 28 people and injuring 945. Four million people lost power, 30,000 utility poles fell, millions of trees were killed or damaged. The price tag for that storm topped $5 billion.(Back to stories.)

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 http://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 E-News. Member participation is what keeps the E-News alive and kicking.

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


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

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