Bryan Yeaton and the Weather Mobile Visit Davis

Bryan Yeaton’s Weather Mobile boasts an on-board weather station. Despite 20,000 miles on the road, the Vantage Pro just keeps feeding Bryan weather data. He keeps the console on the seat next to him and sometimes uses the wind speed readings to verify his speedometer! Bryan’s on his way home to Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, after taking his radio show, The Weather Notebook, on a cross-country car ride to Seattle and back.

But this year, with New Hampshire (and the rest of the East Coast) being “treated” to some particularly bone-chilling days, Bryan had to miss out on the dramatic mountain-top weather. Instead, he was checking out all sorts of winter weather on his Weather Notebook National Tour, presented by Subaru and Davis Instruments. Bryan fired up his Subaru Weather Mobile, equipped with a Davis Vantage Pro weather station, in December and set off in the direction of Seattle, bringing educational weather programs to schools, radio stations, and community groups along the way. He and the Weather Mobile made a big splash at WeatherFest and the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Seattle, then turned south to start his return trip via Hayward, California, the home of Davis Instruments.

Last week, the Davis crew was delighted to find the Weather Mobile in our parking lot. Everybody hurried outside to see our familiar Vantage Pro, ingeniously mounted atop the Subaru on an adapted Thule kayak rack, and we all beamed with pride as Bryan told us that it had performed flawlessly despite a grueling 20,000-mile life on the road.

Bryan’s colleague, John Mitchell, created an ingenious mounting for the Vantage Pro. He adapted a Thule kayak rack, that not only keeps the sensors safe and accessible, but also allows Bryan to fold them down if ever he needs to go somewhere with low overhead clearance. (Storm chasers, tell us how you’ve mounted your weather station on your vehicle! Send us a photo to share in one of our future e-newsletters.)

“It’s been beat up pretty well,” Bryan told us, patting his VP like a proud papa, “and the only problem I’ve had was broken wind cups, caused by debris thrown up by a truck I was following.”

We all thought the Weather Mobile was the coolest vehicle we’d ever seen, and Bryan told us our reaction was pretty routine.

“I get all kinds of great looks, and people are always asking me about the weather station,” Bryan told us. “The only place I ever went in the Weather Mobile where it was one among many was at a meeting of storm spotters in Norman, Oklahoma. We didn’t get a second look there!”

Bryan treated our entire crew to a presentation about the Observatory and how weather readings are taken in a climate too extreme for any automated weather station. He told us that Mount Washington, at a modest 6,000 feet, has killed more people than any mountain on earth except for Mount Everest, which only recently passed it up. The reason is the frequently misleading difference between conditions at the bottom and those at the summit. Hikers have been known to set off for a hike on what seems to be a mild, sunny day only to find themselves in need of rescue in the freezing cold and high winds nearer the summit.

Mount Washington’s big claim to fame is its relentless high winds. The average daily wind speed is a gale force 35 mph, but there are hurricane force gusts every three days. On 24 days of the year, winds top 100 mph! The highest wind speed ever recorded was measured right here: 231 mph. Add that to routine winter temps in the -20’s F, and “wind chill” takes on meaning beyond the imagination.

The cold and wind make for difficult weather measurements. Wind speed is measured by a pitot-tube anemometer, and much of the hourly weather data is gathered the old fashioned way, such as by using a sling psychrometer.

Although Bryan might like to be a full-time resident at the observatory, so far, there is only one such resident: a cat named Nin. The human visitors come for a few days at a time, traveling, when conditions allow, by snow tractor to the summit. (Bryan gave us the inside scoop about the trip, describing the long ride packed in the enclosed back compartment, swaying this way and then that way. . . He also told us that the cold is something of a convenience when the end result of the inevitable motion sickness freezes into a neat, easily-disposed-of lump.)

As we watched Bryan and the Weather Mobile drive off in the general direction of home, wind cups spinning merrily, most of us felt pretty darned proud of ourselves. That’s one tough weather station and one cool weather guy!

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