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Davis Weather Stations Have a Global Presence
During a trip to Abu Dhabi, Ysbrand Bergman of Venhuizen, Netherlands got the chance to watch a demonstration of the presidential guard, who were preparing for the celebration of the United Arab Emirates's 40th birthday. He was looking at the mobile command center and saw something familiar by the UAE flag. (Ysbrand is the proud owner of a Vantage Pro2 himself!) The Vantage Pro2 Plus is mounted on an air traffic control mobile tower, which is a completely self-contained system that can be quickly moved and installed. It is built to endure adverse weather conditions and can be towed by a truck on its two-axle base. Thanks, Ysbrand!
Our Brazilian distributor Agrosystem sent us this nice photo of a little Vantage Vue doing its part in watching over a flood-prone area in the state of Santa Catarina in South Brazil. The hope is that this station, along with four other Vantage Vues, a Vantage Pro2 Plus, and water level monitors will provide flood warning to the city of Jaraguá do Sul. Two larger cities nearby, Joinville and Blumenau, will also benefit.
And our Finnish distributor, Ilkka Lilja Oy, sent us this photo of another life-saving Vantage Pro2 on the other side of the world. This one is on the regional fire station in Keski-Suomi, in central Finland. You can see their data on WeatherLink.com. Vantage Pro2 Helps Predict Flash Flood After Wildfires in Arizona The last issue of the Coyote Crier, a spotter newsletter for Southeast Arizona, included a story about the devastating spring/summer fire season of 2011. Three fires, all caused by humans, burned almost 800,000 acres and hundreds of structures and homes in May and June. But the NWS folks at Tucson Weather Forecast Office didn't exactly breathe a sigh of relief as fire season moved into monsoon season: the fires left damaged soil that is very likely to flood. Josh Brost wrote that "Any post-wildfire flash flooding and debris flows that occur may cause damage more devastating than what the the fires produced and could become an even greater threat to human life." So WFO Tucson set out to raise the awareness of the danger of flash floods. They did so by educating community members, instituting internal plans, and by installing additional rain gauges. And when they recognized that there was a significant data void in the area in which one of the fires had burned, they also set up two Vantage Pro2 weather stations that send data via APRS to a public web site. One station was installed in very remote mountain area accessible by helicopter, the other next to the burned remains of a station set up by the National Park Service. "The day after WFO Tucson installed the first station," Brost wrote, "heavy rainfall developed and caused a flash flood and debris flow. The rainfall observations helped forecasters make a timely flash flood warning." You can see video of the event, with its angry ash-blackened, fast-moving, dangerous water on YouTube. We feel very good about being part of this effort. Thanks to Greg Mollere, Senior Forecaster and Spotter Training Coordinator with NWS Tucson, and our reader Peter Ertman for sending this story our way. (While you are wandering around YouTube, check out williamwilbur's video of his
Vantage Vue, which he has mounted atop a high pole and steadied with guy wires. The jazzy music really goes with the spinning wind cups!)
>> Back to Menu Welcome to 2012, Weather Fans! If weather is your thing, and wild, weird weather is even more your thing, then 2011 must have left you happy as a clam in an El Niño year. You must have been very busy keeping track of the rash of tornadoes, floods, fires, droughts, high highs and low lows that inspired climatologist Bill Patzert to call it "global weirding." It started out with the news that scientists had created 52 rain storms in the Abu Dhabi desert in 2010, and it just got weirder from there. (Wait, wait, there are a few skeptics out there weighing in on this story! Read about them in this National Geographic story.) If you live in the UK, you might have found the two-spring, no-summer year fascinating, but your poor wildlife found it plain confusing. Animals all over the world suffered through the weird weather of 2011, with mass animal deaths making the news several times in 2011. (Remember when thousands of birds dropped dead from the sky in Arkansas, Louisiana and Sweden, millions of dead fish washed up in Chesapeake Bay and Brazil, and hundreds of dead crabs turned up in England?) Meteorologists have offered scientific explanations for the weird weather that mostly point to La Niña and the North Atlantic Oscillation and to the Arctic Oscillation, but they are don't all agree on the extent to which global warming is to blame. (Global warming? For a sweat-inducing visual on the change in global temps, especially in the last decade, check out this video from Universe Today's Videos Channel. Gives us a hot flash just looking at it.) They all agree, sadly, that we need to prepare for more weird weather. In an article on Nature.com, Quirin Schiermeier tells us the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) warns that "it is 'virtually certain' — meaning 99 to100% probability in IPCC terminology — that the twenty-first century will see an increase in the frequency and magnitude of warm temperature extremes and a decrease in cold extremes." True to form, 2012 has started out with a springtime-like tornado in Texas, a winter-like, snowy summer in Australia, too little snow in Canada and too much in France, Austria and Germany, drought in Argentina, and extreme heat in Africa. Welcome to the wacky world of weather watching. Get your Vantage Pro2s and Vantage Vues all thawed, cleaned, and ready to rock. 2012 is going to be a wild ride.
>> Back to Menu Garden Vantage Pro2 Sited Right
We love this peaceful setting for Steve Morris's Vantage Pro2 in Avon, Ohio. As an avid gardner and former small boat sailor, Steve has always been interested in the weather. Now that he's retired, his weather knowledge (and his trusty weather station) has let him double the size of his lush garden. Steve also shares his data, sending it to the CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow) Network. We also love how Steve has mounted the rain collector and temp/hum sensor at about 5 feet above his garden, and the anemometer up there on the roof. He has done several things exactly right, as far as siting goes. One is that the surface over which the temp/hum sensor is mounted is green. It is not asphalt or bare soil, so it won't radiate extra heat and skew his readings. The rain collector is clear of obstructions and at a convenient level for maintaining. Second is that, although Steve might have mounted the anemometer on the same pole as the rain collector, he put his anemometer (we are guessing he used an Anemometer Transmitter Kit) up on the roof where it is going to get very accurate readings. Steve's installation highlights a key difference between the Vantage Vue and Vantage Pro2 weather stations: the ability to separate the anemometer from the rain collector and temp/hum sensor. The way Steve has his station sited is close to ideal, and couldn't be done with a Vantage Vue. He can also add on to his station in the future. Last year, for example, he added Solar Radiation, and UV Sensors, useful for making irrigation decisions in his garden. (We might suggest he even add on a Wireless Leaf & Soil Moisture Station one of these days.) On the other hand, the beauty of the Vantage Vue is its simplicity - easy to install, easy to maintain, easy to love! All with the same accuracy and resilience as Vantage Pro2. Ideal siting makes your station's data more useful for comparison with other stations because when weather watchers compare temperature readings, they assume the reading is taken at this height. For many users, the necessary siting compromises they have to make with a Vantage Vue are tolerable. Vantage Vue users often care a little more about either wind or temperature, and choose the best site for that weather variable. For example, they may install the ISS on the roof to get very accurate wind data, with the understanding that the temperature up there may differ slightly from the temperature at 5' above the ground. If you do want to aim for the perfect siting and the ability to add on stations, you might want to look at a Vantage Pro2. But either way, your data will be accurate and your station will flourish in whatever weather comes your way. >> Back to Menu Nampans Finally Emerge from Real-Time Weather Void
Until recently the poor folks in Nampa, Idaho were "in a void of real-time weather information." (How horrible!) But all that changed when the Idaho-Press Tribune and KBOI-TV partnered up to install a Vantage Pro2! Data from the new station will be used in nightly newscasts and will be available online. Lighthouses warn ships at sea of coastal hazards. But one lighthouse in San Luis Obispo also warns hikers and trolley riders, and anyone who goes outside in that California coastal community of weather hazards. The charming, Point San Luis Lighthouse, "the jewel of the Central Coast," sits atop a winding, 3.5-mile trail that hikers love. But when it rains, that trail can be slippery. Less agile visitors can ride a trolley, but even it is affected by nasty weather. Recently, Ken Irwin of the Lighthouse Keepers and Chris Arndt of SLOWeather installed a Vantage Pro2 on the lighthouse. Now you can see in advance if your boots are going to get muddy on the way up to the lighthouse! See the story in the San Luis Tribune. (You may remember Chris's name - he's been mentioned here (Weather Club E-News, April 2011) before for his installation of a weather station on the Condor Lookout facility. So far he as installed 10 stations in the area, all of them Davis', of course!) Speaking of lighthouses and weather, when you think of how much weather, salt water, and wave action lighthouses have to endure, their builders and designers seem even more impressive. Click here to see 44 great photos of the weather and water attacks lighthouses have to endure. Our favorite is the one by Tom Gill (scroll down to #6) of a horrible ice monster that used to be the lighthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan.
>> Back to Menu What do you think of the E-Newsletter? How can we improve? How do you use your Davis weather products? E-mail us at news@davisnet.com. Question 1:What is the difference between a flash flood and a plain old flood? A flash flood occurs within six hours of the rain event. Flooding is a longer term event and may last a week or more. Extra Credit: True or False: If a flash flood causes just a foot or so of water in a roadway, you can safely just drive right through because your car is very heavy. Yeah, and you are invincible, and if you get stuck you can change into your Superman suit and just fly away to safety. Noooooo! The NWS flash flooding brochure answers the question, "How can a foot or two of water cost you your life?"" with these convincing bullet points:
>> Back to Menu Question 2: Which statement is true: Over a thousand high temperature records, to be more precise, were broken. Snow was not present in EVERY state, but only because we have sunny Florida in our union. You could find snow on the ground in every other state, even Hawaii. Extra Credit: "Happy as a clam" doesn't make much sense until you realize that's only part of the saying. What's the rest of it? "Happy as a clam at high water," meaning, relatively safe from predators. Extra Extra Credit: Are clams actually happy? According to humorist Mark Miller in the Huffington Post, no, not a bit. He cites his fictional source, Dr. Patra Gupta of the equally fictional Kerala Institute of Undersea Study, who claims clams secrete a liquid that is identical in DNA structure to human tears, and that they don't move, fight back, care about how they look, react to pain or communicate -- classic signs of depression. >> Back to Menu Question 3: The Arctic Oscillation is a climate INDEX . When it is in a positive phase surface pressure is LOW in the polar region and cold air tends to be "corralled" near the pole. A positive phase usually indicates WETTER weather for Alaska, Scotland, and Scandinavia; DRIER weather in the Western United States and the Mediterranean; COLDER weather in Greenland and Newfoundland, and WARMER weather east of the Rockies in the US. It fluctuates DAILY, MONTHLY, SEASONALLY, and ANNUALLY. >> Back to Menu A. Cloud seeding B. If it actually happened the way Swiss company Meteo Systems claims it did, the real novelty is that this method required no clouds to seed, no hail to smash, and not even particularly moist air (reportedly only 30% humidity was needed.) >> Back to Menu Question 5: True or False: Of the seven wonders of the world, one is a lighthouse. True. The Lighthouse of Alexandria, was built in 280 BCE on the island of Pharos near the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. It was 384 feet high, encased in white marble and lit with a bonfire. It survived over 1000 years. What was left of the earthquake-ravaged rubble was dismantled in 1375. >> Back to Menu Davis! What do you think of our E-news? Please continue to send your comments, weather URLs, 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. Vantage Vue, 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. |
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WEATHER IN ACTION
