Stormfly

This storm is going to blow.

Been using one for the past 2 years. Also got the Grip6 belt which has been holding up to daily use for over 2 years very well. Made in USA. And yes Jan 25, 2000 FTW! Sometimes those sneaky ones are the best!

Anyone try tubing? The last time I was INSIDE a tube was three large ones lashed together and it rolled down a steep hill. Surprisingly it didn't end of up in disaster but let's just say I couldn't stand up for a few minutes! Tubing (as a sled) down a hill looks fun. Summer time (in the mountains) would be alpine coasters but I guess if you're hardcore you could do it in freezing cold. In my younger days hell yes!

So much this! Skiing is not to be taken lightly. It's not like picking up a guitar and trying it out. And if your bindings aren't set right you can wind up with painful, lasting injuries!

Around here it would be the 9th!

Would love to see a 01/25/2000 redux!

32 and rain. Some glaze from zr-showers earlier. This is flushing the palate for the next round. NB 165 looked snow covered yesterday from all the salt residue! Mother nature needs to wash that away sometimes.

30/20, fresh SW breeze bringing in the warmth for sure.

Not sure of the anemometer on the 1290 but I do believe it uses the generator method as seeing it in action there was a bit of needle wobble at low speeds. Basically how that works is a small generator (like the bicycle generators that have a rub gear that contacts the tire sidewall) connected to the anemometer cups spins in proportion to wind speed. A small current is generated which is picked up by a milliammeter in the console. The faster the wind, the higher the current. Quite simple but does have some wearing components besides the bearings. (commutator and brushes). The wind vane on that model uses a magnet attached to the shaft and eight glass reed switches. A reed switch closes when a magnet approaches and opens when it leaves. These are everywhere and very common in security systems, for example. The idea is the 8 reed switches are laid out on a circuit board in a compass rose formation. Since two switches can be engaged the same time (alnico bar magnet in between switches) this provides 16 point direction as indicated via lights. Nifty and simple. Temperature sensor may have used a thermistor / RTD and/or diode bridge. Diodes were quite stable but vulnerable to RFI so if used in a HAM shack with a 2kW HF linear they'd go bezerk when keying up! Barometer was simple bellows aneroid type that's found in many home barometers. Interesting about seeing it fall. I know many of them respond well to change by tapping them as they don't move in small increments. Often I would put the marker needle over the main and come back after bathroom break and see 0.05" drop which was scary. Digital is more accurate but there's nothing like watching a mercury column when some serious weather moves through. Speaking of digital, Heath made two very accurate digital units (one with a chart recorder) that used a crystal oven assembly to keep its transducer at a stable temperature for repeatability. Very nice! The anemometer operation can be verified simply by driving on a calm day and noting the vehicle speed or GPS vs. wind speed. Wind tunnel is the best way to verify linearity to gauge limits but most don't have access to one. Wind vane operation easily verified visually. If something gets misaligned a point can be missing (fail to light two lights simultaneously) or even THREE lights can come on if one of the reed switches is overly sensitive or something has become magnetized. (rather rare) The 1890's wind sensors are opto electronic and very stable mechanically but if they misbehave a little more knowledge in 8 bit logic and encoding is needed to troubleshoot. Interesting nonetheless.

I've taken a few hard falls from refreezing water. You're walking fine and all in a sudden you're down on the ground, back of the head bleeding and all cut up from the edge of the gravel in the tar and chip road. It's literally like the feeling of a whip pulling your feet out from under you and bam! And when you get over 50 the risk of concussion is real. The other type is where you're well aware of the ice, see it, step on it and feel your shoes/boots sliding but you're confident that you can do it. Then the sliding starts and sometimes you luck out and can grab something like a railing or car. Or if not so lucky you start a sort of dance on skis thing that can wind up really ugly. It really looks funny seeing it and its hard not to laugh for sure but people tend to get hurt when this happens. Number three (guy on driveway) I've done before and the grass is definitely way to go!

Yep. Our power here is strange. During a storm, sometimes severe, never a trace of anomaly. (outside of 6kV spikes from lightning but those generally don't initiate a transfer except UBS which is critical systems) A perfectly clear day OTOH, sometimes there's a blip or even total outage lasting a few seconds to 30 minutes. Been that way for over 10 years. Yesterday afternoon there was an anomaly which caused a transfer, for example. I know because I get a text immediately.

We could only hope. That storm was a 10.0 for us. We had plenty of time to be properly prepared. Our power never went out. P-type was consistent throughout. It was breezy with some stronger gusts to cause white outs at times. See number two! Temps were good before and after and cleanup while laborious, was not off the scale. We were under some bands at the end that wouldn't let up giving us an amazing 37" total! That's hard to top these days. TBH, I'd be fine with half the total.

That would be the ID-1290: Very popular due to providing temp/pressure/windspeed and direction for under $150. Very reliable unit.

A tenth of an inch is not really a problem. A quarter to half inch OTOH, trees aren't going to like that very much.

I'm OK with that. We bottomed out close to the lowest temp we had in 2021 already... When it's cold enough to freeze your nostrils on the first inhale when stepping outside, I'm good. Colder than that doesn't help much. We've been below 0 several times but the last time we had some really big chill (-13F) was in Jan 1994. What a bad winter that was. Unless you're a penguin! We all had to walk that way with the damn ice on everything. The cold snap of 1985 too, was close to double digits below 0 here as well. I'd have to check but I believe the last time we were firmly below zero was Feb 2015. I know because we lost the pipe heaters in the turbine hall from a lightning strike in 2014 and ever since then if it goes below 0 for a few hours the water in the idle runs freezes up! Oh and another thing, the days of No.2 (dyed Diesel / heating oil) of 89 cents a gallon are LONG GONE!

Heathits were awesome! My first was the ID-1890 "wind computer" circa 1981. It was less than half the price of the amazing ID-4000 and had the same wind sensor. The bearings for the anemometer and large cups meant this was spinning practically all the time. My Downeast and Weather Helm anemometers needed enough wind to feel on your face to start turning. Kind of like that Accurite AIO that's still holding up (I don't know how!) on the tower today. In 1985 we had severe storms with two trees struck on the property and I lost the CPU on the barometer and a few photo transistors on the wind sensors of the 1890. Finding parts today, particularly the custom Z80 CPU, is extraordinarily difficult. But if you happen across a 1890 or 4000 without the boom and when plugged in the clock is working and wind speed shows 0 out of the southeast, it's worth buying because it has a good cpu. The ID-5000 was the last console they released and added even more functions. The gold foil humidity sensors were quite frail on these and if not properly installed (outdoors) would often fail. There are substitute transducers available and if one is capable of building the kit surely has the electronics knowledge to repair them! What I like about them, particularly wind sensors is you actually see the wind speed and direction in real time. The display update rate is 2Hz (two times/sec) and is like watching a digital speedometer in a car which is fun during a bout of severe weather. Everything today being wireless is delayed and even worse many don't have a sample buffer meaning peak gusts are never displayed or (ultimately worse) recorded. If I installed the (Heathkit) boom today, I'd use shielded CAT6 for the cable and make sure the boom is connected to the drain wire along with the back panel of the display unit. The original 8 conductor wire was not even using twisted pairs and susceptible to damaging voltage spikes from poorly grounded masts or nearby lightning strikes.

LOL haven't heard that number in years. Along with the time lady at 844-1212. I got my first weather radio in the early 80s. No need to call the weather bureau as they called it.

Shorts? How about posting from outside right now barefoot? For proof, I dropped my iPad in the snow on the deck! Ok running to the car in stocking feet on a cold dry driveway is one thing, but damn that was COLD!

Speaking of sound nothing tops the sound of snowflakes hitting the leaf covered forest floor. If you're in the middle of nowhere and the only sound is from nature, it's simply amazing! The only thing that could top that is it were thundersnow and a really close one (<1 sec) strikes taking you totally by surprise!

I notice this too when accumulations are light. Snow diffuses the light but it still gets through enough to heat the surface below to above freezing and melt the snow. Many times my solar panels are cleared off far sooner than my skylights. Both surfaces are glass but the former is quite dark and is a good absorber of insolation.

Even early Jan sun does damage! 830 this AM And a few min ago, roughly 8 hours later

Being without power sucks. We have livestock and cannot "bug out" like our friends do. Interestingly enough, many don't know better and leave and come home to a LOT of damage when all their pipes freeze solid and burst. So we have a few gennies. A large diesel and a few smaller gas portable units including inverter types for the sensitive equipment. 15kW of solar which is grid tie so not doing any good during an outage but that can be rectified in an emergency situation. It costs a LOT to keep the power on in an extended outage. But out of necessity it's worth it as well. The last time we had a multi day outage was the wind storm of 03/02/2018. It was cold but nothing like the cold this week. In 2011 with Irene the electrical distribution system up here took a huge hit and we were on genny power for nearly a week. For internet we used a cradle point router with a Verizon card (EVDO back in the day) got about a megabit down and 300-500kbps up which was fine for email and stuff. Until day two! The cell sites around here back then only used battery banks that could run 48 hours tops. The larger sites with onsite gennies were far enough away that the signal dropped. I had to climb a tower to mount a directional antenna to get a better signal and stay connected. But if the unthinkable happens, I can bring out the retired HAM gear from my FIL to see what's happening. Hopefully that day never comes.

Yeah it's not going to be exact by any means but certainly close enough! Usually I see a lower amount on the railings where the sun does shine. Not today. The covered fire pit, however is painted mild steel and is a great sink for insolation and is showing shrinkage and slight dripping. I think I see our first icicle of the season forming over 2cm! These events, when they happen mid March, OTOH, such a big difference. Sounds like rain outside as the water dripping into the gutters is very noticeable. At times when bigger gusts rip through the spruce line, it looks like softball sized flakes coming down and as they break up in the descent it's indeed very flizzard-like. This storm came like a thief in the night! I hit the sheets at 0:45 and there was a dusting. Awake at 06:15 and there's close to five inches and it's over. Checked the cams and there was some pretty good rates from 2-4 AM.

If you really want to know how much snow you got, yes you need a ruler and take several measurements! What looks like a solid 5" here turned out to be less as seen here: I went around and took several measurements. This area doesn't get sun and is in a decent wind shadow.

Solid 5" here, perfectly clear skies. Winds gust occasionally and snow coming off spruce line makes it look like it's snowing hard by the window. Very pretty out. Now if this was Christmas morning...