The Springs got hit by near-hurricanic winds last night, stronger than I’ve seen since the infamous New Year’s Day storm in 2004 that threw a piece of the back fence of our rental house through the window, and demolished a nearby house that was under construction. We don’t have a fence here, and the roof shingles are concrete, so as best I know the house itself took no hits. However, the wind howled all damned night with a fury that suggested 80-90 MPH sustained gusts. I have wanted a weather station here from time to time. This morning, I want one a lot more than I did yesterday.
We looked out on the back deck when we got up and found that our gas grill and all of our deck furniture had been tightly packed onto the south end of the deck. There was some snow, but it had been blown around and drifted so heavily that it was tough to tell just how much. (I’m guessing 2″.) What was there was wet and very dense, suggesting that we might have had 10″ or more this morning had the temps been ten or fifteen degrees colder during the night.
I’m still under spousal orders to stay in bed as much as possible, and probably will until this terrible cough goes away. (My chest has gone into it-hurts-to-breathe-too-much mode, suggesting that the cough will pass away sometime this afternoon. It had better.)
How much wind does it take to do that? Yikes! I’ve stopped thinking about a weather station and have started shopping. If you have any recommendations, I will enthusiastically hear them.
Hello Jeff,
Hope the cold goes away quickly. I have had a Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 Weather Station for 4 years. I’m very happy with it, no problems with it at all. It has a solar powered, wireless Sensor station that eliminates wiring issues. Take a look… http://www.davisnet.com/
Regards,
Daniel
Wow is all I can say Jeff is wow! That would definitely have to have been some mighty powerful winds to blow that big grill of yours around like it did.
Also get well soon we miss you guys :). If it don’t get no better you might want to go see doctor. You could be on verge of something bigger then a cold.
I had bronchitis and it wasn’t fun. 🙁
Get Well Soon!
Hello Jeff,
Friend of mine is into amateur meteorology so I asked him his opinion – thought it might help:
The two biggest players in commercial/semi-pro gear are Peet Brothers (they made the first wx station I had) and LaCrosse Technology (who makes my current one).
The Peet gear, IMO, isn’t as rugged as the LaCrosse stuff is. The open source package that I use to read my station is still in somewhat active development (open2300)
The gear that the NWS designed for the ASOS stations at most airports, was spun off into a commercial product I think. I’ll dig around and see if I can find that info.
My LaCrosse gear has been in continuous service since 2004, and the only part that’s failed and needed to be replaced was the anemometer fan assembly for measuring wind speed.
If I needed to replace mine for some reason, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another LaCrosse.
Hi Jeff:
I’ve been following your blog for over a year now. We are the same age and have many of the same interests. For many years I too wanted a semi-pro wx station and in 2010 I purchased and installed a Davis Vantage Pro 2. Here in south Florida it has easily lived up to its stellar reputation. The Davis stations are tough and can be found all over the world in some of the harshest environments.
73 de AC4NS
We have a La Crosse, but Mike isn’t happy with their lack of support. If you use Windows, you may be happy with them. They won’t release information to Mac developers to write software for Apple computers.