I bought an un-tethered weather station and mounted it out on our dock to keep it away from obstructions. It reports in every second or less to the base station, which is plugged into my PC where a program grabs and stores all of the data for display. Weather watching in Oregon is kind of a hobby for many people because it changes frequently and, usually, several of the measured parameters are on the move simultaneously.
When we lived in southern Arizona our weather station consisted of a thermometer. The seasons were hot, hotter, hell, and pleasant in Phoenix. Here on the Oregon coast we have reached hot on one day in ten years and it happened to be when relatives from southern AZ were visiting. The temperatures then were 65, 62, 104 and 61. Almost nothing here has air conditioning for good reason.
I got my weather station running on November 6th. Since that time I have been learning about the software program and its limitations while creating a web page with the built in "Wizard" and working out some kinks in the wireless connection between my office and the router located in the house. My antique PC is using a USB concocted wireless thingy and it tends to drop the signal once in a while. The result is that my web page does not update every 5 minutes like it should, although the data for the time period is still stored. If the cable TV company ever fixes the low signal strength at our house I will go back to them as my ISP and hard wire my PC connection again. That whole thing is a long story. Dealing with the cable company is probably similar to dealing with the Social Security Administration - you know that the answer is there somewhere in the bowels of the organization, but there is no useful map and the chances of finding someone willing to help has the same odds as hitting the Power Ball lottery.
Anyway, I have been dutifully following the collection of the daily highs, lows, wind speed, rainfall, etc. and just realized this morning that it could become the source of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I pulled up a monthly report that I have looked at often and realized that it has only NOT rained on three days since the 6th of November.
Pass the vitamin D, please.
1 comment:
Very interesting. Maybe we could provide a remote weather station for updates from south of the border? As an aside...since I began receiving Social Security benefits last year, I must correct your assumptions about their practices. I have been in the Soc Sec office in person twice to conduct business and both time was seen by a very pleasant, helpful person within 10 minutes of walking in the door. Also, I have learned that pretty much all transactions with Soc Sec (including the initial application process) can be done on line with a very simple, easy to use website. Your tax dollars are clearly working very well in this Department!
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