Author Topic: Finally get to install my new station.  (Read 2674 times)

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Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #25 on: June 24, 2018, 10:36:43 AM »
That tower's not going nowhere.  I see where the slab could be a big heat sink now.
My suggestion is to have weather station off to side somewhere and just use tower for anemometer.  Rain gauge needs mounted at about 3' elevation anyway.

According to the Rohn engineers it's supposed to be good for 100 mph wind with a 7 sq ft load at the top.
So far, according to the Davis, our gusts have been at about 33 but we do have bigger winds on occasion.
I put the tower 45' from the house and it is only 35' tall.....just in case.

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #26 on: June 24, 2018, 11:48:37 AM »
Great project.  Yet, if that amount of concrete is below the surface and covered with natural material, the whole thing is 'natural material'.  There looks to be an appreciable amount of rock there in the ground anyway, which would have a thermal mass of it's own, but not if protected from direct absorption of the sun by being covered.

In any event, you will have a built in FARS if you have at least some wind all the time.
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Offline Aardvark

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #27 on: June 24, 2018, 11:57:15 AM »
That tower isn't going anywhere.    the ideal height for the ISS is 5 feet above the surface, but the wind can be as high as you care.    Just thinking... in about 100 years some geology guy is going to dig there and wonder WTF?  is this thing .  Write a paper and be world famous

Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #28 on: June 24, 2018, 12:07:58 PM »
Just before the pour.
That's #7 rebar which is pretty close to an inch in diameter.
WTF indeed!
 :grin:


Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #29 on: June 24, 2018, 01:51:06 PM »
We've been 'out west' a few times.  The ground in many places seems to be rocky.  I look at the high tension lines carrying power over valleys and over passes and wonder how the world did they set those poles!
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Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #30 on: June 24, 2018, 02:45:56 PM »
You mean there's dirt with out rocks?


Offline Felix1

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #31 on: June 25, 2018, 07:26:56 AM »

Great tower and that thing sure isn't going anywhere! I'm getting ready to expand my Koi pond this fall when it cools off a bit, could use your help bending the #6 rebar (3/4 inch dia) I put in the first pond and surrounding foundation/waterfall.   =D>

I see you've already addressed the height of your ISS. If you haven't run across the dot gov website yet, that's the siting resource many use; albeit, most are unable to fully comply with:


https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/mesonet/CWOP-OfficialGuide.pdf   (see page 31)


https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/mesonet/CWOP-Siting.pdf   (see page 6 for a laugh)





Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #32 on: June 25, 2018, 07:56:34 AM »
Ok, I'll lower it to 6' but no lower.
I hate walking in to things.

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #33 on: June 25, 2018, 10:34:11 AM »
Greg,
There's the official way and then there's the practical way.

If it is already up, that carries a lot of weight in your decision.  Being wireless, its easy to move, but time on the tower is hard on my feet and having a ground crew is sometimes hard to get in place.

I think the most telling tale is you saying you had almost constant breezes or zephyrs depending upon the day.

 The natural mixing and movement is going to cancel out any stratification that may occur otherwise.  The guidelines say wind at 30' up or so, and there are a lot of papers from universities showing the wind speed slowing caused by the earth's surface, and this makes sense, but it is tough to get something that high, not whip around, and yet be able to be 'easily' taken down.  Haven't been able to find a sky hook at at flea markets lately.

I think the height above ground was chosen for, well, the observer's height.  I recall being envious of the white slatted shelters that we'd see at ranger stations or DNR offices, all on stilts which my dad joked was to make it hard for snakes to curl up inside them. 

I'll look to see if there are the same kind of graphs for variation in temperature with height the same as the wind speed ones that I mentioned.  But standards ARE standards and if you go too far from the expected, there is going to be avoidable variation.  I know that of the many thermometers and humidity sensors I have, some are differing by a couple degrees and 20% depending on sun, wind, how much vegetation is growing, whether it rained and the underlying leaves are soaked, and so on.  Wind is a great equilibrator, mixing things up a lot. 

I'd probably not go to too much trouble, but the little battery may need changing once in awhile, but you have a good safety harness for climbing.  And I don't see many maple or oak trees for plugging up the rain collector as much as my woods does.
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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #34 on: June 25, 2018, 10:49:41 AM »
I can find plenty of stuff on how the temperatures drop as you go up, thousands of feet, that is. 

The only thing I've found was this, pasted below, which implies that the stations have three temperature sensors, and they look for them to be within 0.3 degrees C of each other, do averages and all sorts of stuff with the data loggers.

I'd like to have them put one in my back yard!

"Surface Air Temperature

Each USCRN station has three thermometers which report independent temperature measurements each hour. These three observed temperature value are used to derive a single official USCRN temperature value for the hour. This single value is sometimes a median and sometimes an average of various combinations of the three observed values, depending on information about which instruments agree in a pairwise comparison within 0.3°C. Each station transmits the three independent observed values; the computation of the official USCRN temperature value is done after these values arrive at NCEI. The discussion below describes the details of the three observed values.

Each station has three Thermometrics platinum resistance thermometers, each of which is housed in its own Met One 076B 7308 aspirated solar shield. Each thermometer measures the temperature (in degrees Celsius) every 2 seconds. Every 5 minutes the station datalogger computes the average of these 2-second values, giving 12 5-minute averages for each thermometer. Standard deviations are also calculated for each thermometer. Finally, a moving 5-minute average displaced 10-seconds at a time is used to determine the maximum and minimum 5-minute periods ending within the hour in question.

In addition to the thermometer values, the station also measures the speed of the fan in each aspirated shield. As the shield's fan rotates, a contact closes and generates a pulse twice per rotation. The datalogger counts these pulses every two seconds. Every hour these 2-second values are averaged to obtain an average number of pulses per second for the hour. The hourly data stream from the station thus include the average pulse rate per second for each of the three sensors. The actual speed of the fan in revolutions per second is half the pulse rate."
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Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #35 on: June 25, 2018, 11:15:24 AM »
You can see what our tax dollars brought for this system with the pictures in this pdf

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/documentation/site/photos/stationsbystate_lores.pdf

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Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #36 on: June 25, 2018, 01:10:05 PM »
You can see what our tax dollars brought for this system with the pictures in this pdf

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/documentation/site/photos/stationsbystate_lores.pdf

Nice link, first thing I noticed was all the DFIR (Double Fence Interna-onal Reference) rain gauge shields.   
Studies show DFIR are superior especially for snow catch compared to the single alter windshield. 130mm year more precip caught at test site and over 300mm more vs no shielding at all. The base amount DFIR caught around 820mm total.

Randy

Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #37 on: June 25, 2018, 01:25:46 PM »
Ok got it lowered.
As long as I don't wear a hat, everything will be fine.

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #38 on: June 25, 2018, 01:42:56 PM »
In the site specs, despite having the Obsessive compulsiveness to have not one, not two, but THREE temp sensors and average them and all, that they chose to have the wind speed at 2 meter height. Very odd.
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Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #39 on: June 25, 2018, 02:04:52 PM »
In the site specs, despite having the Obsessive compulsiveness to have not one, not two, but THREE temp sensors and average them and all, that they chose to have the wind speed at 2 meter height. Very odd.

Is odd I guess, only thing I can think of its environmental only and not aviation oriented where the 10 meters came from.

I do like the triple redundancy, my almost 4 decade career as operator at supercritical power plant, our critical instruments were triple redundant where 2 of 3 needed to match. 
Come to think of it I'm still doing the same with my personal weather station with 3 different ISS's.  ;)
Randy

Offline DaleReid

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #40 on: June 25, 2018, 04:37:26 PM »
If I recalll the orbiter on the space shuttle system had 5 computers, all voting as to their value.  The three that were closest were taken as the commands or accuracy of measurement.

If you look at some of the other information about these sites, the rain gauge is a weird thing. It is a bucket which is suspended by three sensors which weigh it when commanded.  They use something called a vibrating wire method (gotta look that one up yet) and weigh it several times.  I don't know how or when it automatically dumps, but I've heard of glass tubes, sticks in tubes, tipping buckets, doppler radar estimates of rate and quantity, Vaisala drop impact measurement, capillary tubes, and siphons like RM Young stuff.  I guess one could put on dry clothes, stand in the rain and weigh yourself too or how much the long haired dog gained in weight while out, but this one is a new one to me. 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/instruments.html

http://geonor.com/live/products/weather-instruments/t-200b-weather-precipitation-rain-gauge/

And my wife wonders what I do with all my time and in front of the computer.
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Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #41 on: January 17, 2019, 10:52:18 AM »
Well it's been about 6 mos since the weather station/tower went up.
Finally got my permanent webpage for it up, although I haven't got the webcam running yet. (Too cold to climb towers)
I did go about half way up the tower and take a picture of what the webcam will be looking at and got the link to the weather page at the bottom.
http://www.datilcam.com/
I'm working on the webcam currently (inside the house).
Turns out the highest wind gust has been 58mph and it got up to 98.5° F.
Records so far.....
http://www.datilcam.com/weather/record.htm

Hopefully I will get the webcam up in the next month or so....Don't want to rush in to anything.


Offline Maumelle Weather

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #42 on: January 17, 2019, 11:19:50 AM »
Awesome setup and gorgeous view you have there, Greg.
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Offline PaulMy

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #43 on: January 17, 2019, 11:29:55 AM »
Quote
I did go about half way up the tower and take a picture of what the webcam will be looking at and got the link to the weather page at the bottom.
http://www.datilcam.com/
For those of us that have this view and no more than a few hundred feet out  https://map.bloomsky.com/weather-stations/gqBxp6apnJSnoJim
dito John

Enjoy,
Paul

Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #44 on: January 17, 2019, 11:56:45 AM »
Awesome setup and gorgeous view you have there, Greg.

Thank you.
They do call it "The Land of Enchantment" and I find that people either love it or hate it.
We love it.

Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #45 on: January 23, 2019, 07:42:05 AM »
Broke our previous wind speed record the other day with a new wind speed record of 81 mph.

http://www.datilcam.com/weather/thismonth.htm

I was curious about how wind speeds are figured so I looked around on the net and found this.....

On the Beaufort wind scale......
Near-gale force winds are 28 to 33 knots. (32.22 to 37.97 mph)
Gale force winds are 34 to 40 knots  (39.13 to 46.03 mph)
Strong gale force winds are 40 to 47 knots. (46.03 to 54.09 mph)
Winds above 47 knots and below 64 knots are storm winds. (54.09 to 73.65 mph)
Sixty-four knots and above are hurricane force winds. A wind, not necessarily a hurricane, having a speed of more than 72 miles per hour (32 m/sec): the strongest of the winds.



Offline johnd

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #46 on: January 23, 2019, 08:15:25 AM »
Broke our previous wind speed record the other day with a new wind speed record of 81 mph.

http://www.datilcam.com/weather/thismonth.htm

I was curious about how wind speeds are figured so I looked around on the net and found this.....

On the Beaufort wind scale......

But please remember that the Beaufort scale was originally developed only for use at sea, where wind speeds tend to be more sustained and less gusty in nature. The way that this is applied nowadays is that the Beaufort scale should only be used in relation to mean wind speeds (10-minute mean is the preferred measure I think, but 2-min may substitute).

So it's really not correct to talk about eg a Force 7 gust because gust speeds simply don't relate to Beaufort, you need to be checking the maximum mean/average speeds.
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Offline miraculon

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #47 on: January 23, 2019, 08:50:19 AM »
Awesome setup and gorgeous view you have there, Greg.

Thank you.
They do call it "The Land of Enchantment" and I find that people either love it or hate it.
We love it.

We have visited NM numerous times over the years. I subscribe to New Mexico magazine and I always get a kick out of the "One of our 50 is missing" page.

We visited the VLA (has it already been almost 19 years?), but have spent more time in the Las Cruces and Alamogordo areas. I really love the White Sands National Monument.

Greg H.


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Greg_M

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #48 on: January 23, 2019, 09:10:55 AM »
We originally bought property in Cloudcroft (up above Alamogordo in the mountains) and then a couple years later found the property we finally built on here in Datil.

We would fly in to El Paso (from Seattle) and I always liked the humor of the message "Eat Pecans" that a farmer had spelled out in 200' letters with Pecan shells under the flight path, in Las Cruces.

The VLA is about 20 miles (as the crow flies) from our house, to the east.

I have run in to instances of people thinking we are located in Mexico a couple times.
I usually just say "We are the state between Texas and Arizona".  :-)

Offline Bashy

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Re: Finally get to install my new station.
« Reply #49 on: January 23, 2019, 09:56:46 AM »
WOW, just wow......

Looking at the grass out there, even that would be a problem, i take it grassing a nice square area around it and maintain it is out of the question? thats what i would do, but its all down to preference, what about a few square meters of artificial grass, thats what the UK met office uses now, keeps maintenance to a minimum...
Kind regards
Bashy