Fog Bank, Jan. 6, 2014

Hello everyone, this is Dave Phillips. You can find my picks of the week at skydaver.blogspot.com. I just have two pics this week, because I'm going to spend a bit of time on number one, an update on the LaCrosse weather station.

The rain gauge is decently accurate. I've been comparing it with the CoCoRaHS gauge, mounted right next to it, and it's good enough.  I think, but don't have an easy way to check, that the temp & humidity gauges are also good enough.

Overall, I give the unit a C+.  The plus part of the grade is because of the price, $80. My dissatisfaction comes from the anemometer.  The system uses the thermometer sensor unit as its central data collection, and that sends the data for all the sensors to the base station and a wireless gateway. Everything has to be no more than 200 feet from the thermometer.  I have my rain gauge next to my CoCoRaHS gauge, 110 feet away from the thermometer on my front porch. My porch faces north, and the thermometer never gets hit by the sun.
I tried to put the anemometer at the same spot in the yard (it's my best spot for rain & wind sensing), but although the rain gauge has no problem getting its signal through the walls of my house, the anemometer cannot.  I might try moving my thermometer up in the eaves of my back porch, but I think the morning sun might disrupt those readings.  Given the small size of my lot, the wind gauge isn't going to be super accurate anywhere, so I'm guessing I'll end up with that somewhere in the front of the lot.

Finally, there isn't any interface to feed your weather data to any of the crowd sourced weather data sites. It just lets you see your own data on a their website.

An interesting story about the BBC's Shipping Forecast, from NPR
http://www.npr.org/2013/12/16/249722733/the-shipping-forecast-from-britains-seas-into-its-soul


Fog Bank, Jan. 6, 2014

Fog Bank, Dec. 16, 2013

First up, NOAA WeatherPartners uploaded a YouTube video, a weather balloon launch with a GoPro camera onboard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk8jP8chYCo

Second, Earth Science picture of the day with a nice roll cloud photo from Norway
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2013/12/roll-cloud-in-northern-norway.html

Third You have to love the Capital Weather Gang, when they analyze their forecast busts. They were writing about a snow forecast early in December.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/12/10/a-half-right-half-wrong-snow-forecast-and-how-we-can-improve/?tid=pm_local_pop

Fourth, From the Weather Channel, a story about fog in the Grand Canyon over the Thanksgiving weekend
http://www.weather.com/news/science/rare-sight-grand-canyon-20131202?hootPostID=792765d6ff0e97ee7a507b9073df69c2

My fifth pick is the La Crosse Technologies Wireless Weather Station. It's available at one of the warehouse clubs for $80. It has three wireless sensors; an anemometer, a rain gauge & a temperature/humidity sensor. It can be a standalone unit, with a fairly decent display station, or you can install a gateway into your network, and it will make your data available via a webpage. The webpage displays nicely on a smartphone, too.
It doesn't appear to come with software to let you share your data.  It probably isn't as good as some of the higher priced stations, but it does what I want for the price..
The only beef so far I have is with the rain gauge. That sensor is difficult to install because of the placement of the mounting screws, and has to be completely removed from its mount in order to change the batteries.

Thanks for listening, Skydaver out.

Sent to JB (again)
Winter Weather Safety page from NWS Norman
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=safety-winter-overview

Audio Fog Bank, Dec 16, 2013

Fog Bank, Nov. 25, 2013

ESPOD has a great picture of the solar eclipse from Nov. 3
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2013/11/total-solar-eclipse-viewed-from-gabon-africa.html

ESPOD again, with a picture of the Nov. 3 eclipse from geostationary orbit.
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2013/11/solar-eclipse-of-november-3-2013-observed-from-space.html


NOAA Weather Partners has a short video of highlights from the 2013 National Weather Festival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmgGRZ2SE00

MattS, @wxboy, sent a twitter update to Nate, James & me with
A Facebook post from Terry Swails, Chief Met with ABC in Moline, IL,  with commentary on taking tornado warnings seriously.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=558179224251731&id=192048420864815&substory_index=0

The proposed replacement of the NWS Graphical Forecast page. Check it out, and respond to their survey
http://preview.weather.gov/graphical/

Washington Post Editorial, The Invisible Successes of Meteorology
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mike-smith-the-invisible-successes-of-meteorology/2013/11/19/42520ad4-5142-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=bufferc9d1e&utm_medium=twitter


Thanks for listening.
Sent to JB.
Winter Weather Safety page from NWS Norman
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=safety-winter-overview

Audio Fog Bank, Nov. 25, 2013

Fog Bank, Nov. 18, 2013

No promises that this matches with the audio; I got REALLY disorganized in November & December.

Joe Renken's discussion of his Bering Sea Rule
http://forums.accuweather.com/index.php?showtopic=31107
or
http://weather.kopn.org/wp/?p=145

Earth Science Picture of the Day had a great photo of a lenticular cloud over Sardinia, Italy
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2013/11/lenticular-cloud-over-sardinia.html

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a stunning Aurora Photo for Nov. 18
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131118.html


Audio Fog Bank, Nov. 18, 2013

Fog Bank, Nov. 11, 2013

Gee whiz, I fell behind on posting these!

Friend of the show Johnny Parker retweeted a magnificent photo of an ice halo, from @weatherpictures

Weather Pictures@WeatherPicture 5:19 PM

22° Ice Halo pic.twitter.com/3bckQifD3b

Retweeted by Johnny Parker

A funny greeting card, and an article about the psychology of snow, from WeatherNation

WeatherNation@WeatherNation 10:08 AM

Sound familiar? @pdouglasweather discusses the "psychology of snow" and why we worry. bit.ly/17ENb5i 

pic.twitter.com/prXr7wlEm6

For JB:

The Cryosphere today, a website with a huge amount of information about the polar ice coverage

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Audio Fog Bank, Nov. 11, 2013

Fog Bank, Nov. 4, 2013

First up,
From KOPN in Columbia, MO, a blog post and reference to research at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) that may enable longer-term forecasting of US heatwave
http://weather.kopn.org/wp/?p=87
The NCAR release
http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/10508/new-research-may-enable-longer-term-forecasts-us-heat-waves

The Astronomy Picture of the Day, for Halloween, had a great aurora photo
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131031.html

A photo taken in NYC of the partial solar eclipse, Sun. Nov. 3
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131104.html

My fourth pick comes from the
Capital Weather Gang with a compilation of photos of the solar eclipse
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/11/04/sunrise-solar-eclipse-one-stunning-time-lapse-five-golden-images/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=bufferfe56d&utm_medium=twitter

I'll close out with a very pretty double rainbow picture, but after getting snared by the lightning struck sand photo, I'm not going to call it real.
Is this double rainbow picture real?
Michael Seger@MichaelSeger 9:58 AM
Wow!! RT @bbcweather A double rainbow captured by Paul Appleby in Shiremoor. bbc.in/1felCiO Jo W pic.twitter.com/G0zMPLqhyr

Thanks for listening,

For JB.
Panorama photo of a roll cloud in Amarillo TX
Texas Storm Chasers@TxStormChasers 10:18 AM
Roll cloud along the cold front south of Amarillo this morning, from Daniel Keith. #txwx pic.twitter.com/KuAJi8zHh7

Audio Fog Bank

Fog Bank, October 28, 2013

First pick was a photo posted on Twitter, taken from an airplane. Great photo of gravity waves, from above the clouds

ntxweathersooner@ntxweathersoonr 12:07 AM
Gravity waves“ @HighDriveK9: Clouds looked like ocean waves this morning high above @dfwairport pic.twitter.com/jPIxRnYl8q” @NWSFortWorth

My second pick comes from
ESPOD with an Aurora photo, and an interesting guest
http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2013/09/manitoba-aurora-and-meteor.html

Third I have Chuck Doswell's comments on the Mike Morgan interview
http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/MikeMorgan_Interview_Comments.html?utm_content=buffer94824&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Fourth, A 2011 picture of Kelvin Helmholz clouds
Georgia Storm Chaser@StormCoker 11:48 AM
These rare "tsunami clouds" form under certain air turbulence! Taken in Birmingham, AL in 2011! #WeatherWednesday pic.twitter.com/osgEBvxRZP

Fifth, Ginger Zee retweeted an interesting cloud photo, taken in Princeton, Nj, with the comment "Take your guesses"
Ginger Zee@Ginger_Zee 10:13 AM
Take your guesses! MT“ @carterromero23: @Ginger_Zee @RiderUnivComm Princeton, NJ. #Namethatcloud pic.twitter.com/33iIVDuNoy”

For JB
A video from OceanToday about Hurricane Sandy
http://oceantoday.noaa.gov/makingofasuperstorm/

Audio Fog Bank