Topic: Old Fashioned Weather Station

[alexstaar]

Any wind data before it was destroyed? My highest wind speed recorded was a nighttime heat burst from decaying TS. 1:30 AM June 20th, temperature shot up and recorded 62 mph wind.

Just checked your archives on WU. This "heat burst" you describe could have been a bore passage. Bores are wave like features that occur at night within a stable boundary layer through which they propagate. It's passage mixes the boundary layer and mixes warmer air aloft down to the surface. What's interesting is that the temp then fell pretty quickly after it's sharp rise. I'll have to look at some radar data to see what was going on in the area at the time. Whatever this boundary was may not have been a bore, but could have been enough to have this same mixing effect.

[ValentineWeather]

Thanks Alex. One of the North Platte meteorologist thought it may of been a heat burst. All I remember was there was TS activity in area and looks like a frontal boundary possible with the drop in temperatures and pressure rise at same time.  I'll include graphs for others. It still stands as my highest wind speed and the house shook pretty good.   

[Jim's Weather]

No wind speeds were recorded during the event. Thunderstorms were training over the area and the previous one knocked power out to the site. It did come back online by itself once power was restored. It just wasn't providing very good data.  Everything had to be replaced except the RPU electronics, temperature/humidity sensor and the RM Young sensor.

I did talk to the farmer whose field is behind the tower and asked him about the wind speed. He said he had no idea but that he was home and it scared the <blank> out of him.  I said well that satisfies my curiosity enough. I walked his field and noticed most of the tall plants, grasses were heavily leaning towards the north. The tower fell towards the north. I drove a few miles south and noticed most of the tall grasses, plants were leaning south. Almost in a flattened state.

[miraculon]

No wind speeds were recorded during the event. Thunderstorms were training over the area and the previous one knocked power out to the site. It did come back online by itself once power was restored. It just wasn't providing very good data.  Everything had to be replaced except the RPU electronics, temperature/humidity sensor and the RM Young sensor.

I did talk to the farmer whose field is behind the tower and asked him about the wind speed. He said he had no idea but that he was home and it scared the <blank> out of him.  I said well that satisfies my curiosity enough. I walked his field and noticed most of the tall plants, grasses were heavily leaning towards the north. The tower fell towards the north. I drove a few miles south and noticed most of the tall grasses, plants were leaning south. Almost in a flattened state.

Interesting. I was trying to make sense out of the wind load chart on the Glen Martin MF-1331 web page. The square feet (allowed?) at the various speeds "max projected area" seem to indicate that only 1 sq. ft. is OK at 110 mph. I suspect that the NEMA box alone is larger than that. I don't know what all of the mast items add up to but that tower might be good up to 100 mph or so, depending on the area.

I am glad to hear that the RM Young survived. One tough bird!

Greg H.

[Jim's Weather]

Someone once told me that tower wind load was based on what was on top the tower in sq ft. I was going to try calculate the sq ft on the tower to come up with a probable wind speed. Then I had this thought that allowed sq ft would probably increase at a particular wind speed as you go down the tower. My thinking is that the NEMA box would put much more wind load on the tower at 30 feet than it does at 5 feet. Then it got complicated enough that I didn't care anymore to figure it out. 

[alexstaar]

Thanks Alex. One of the North Platte meteorologist thought it may of been a heat burst. All I remember was there was TS activity in area and looks like a frontal boundary possible with the drop in temperatures and pressure rise at same time.  I'll include graphs for others. It still stands as my highest wind speed and the house shook pretty good.

Very interesting indeed. How often do you archive data locally (1 min, 5 min, 10 min...)? Would be interesting to see the higher resolution data. Sorry for going off topic again!

[Jim's Weather]

Thanks Alex. One of the North Platte meteorologist thought it may of been a heat burst. All I remember was there was TS activity in area and looks like a frontal boundary possible with the drop in temperatures and pressure rise at same time.  I'll include graphs for others. It still stands as my highest wind speed and the house shook pretty good.

Very interesting indeed. How often do you archive data locally (1 min, 5 min, 10 min...)? Would be interesting to see the higher resolution data. Sorry for going off topic again!

No prob! Interesting stuff. I'll have to see if I can find the video I took of my Weather Monitor II console recording a 112 mph wind in a derecho. I didn't even know it had 3 digits for wind on the LCD. 

[alexstaar]

Thanks Alex. One of the North Platte meteorologist thought it may of been a heat burst. All I remember was there was TS activity in area and looks like a frontal boundary possible with the drop in temperatures and pressure rise at same time.  I'll include graphs for others. It still stands as my highest wind speed and the house shook pretty good.

Very interesting indeed. How often do you archive data locally (1 min, 5 min, 10 min...)? Would be interesting to see the higher resolution data. Sorry for going off topic again!

No prob! Interesting stuff. I'll have to see if I can find the video I took of my Weather Monitor II console recording a 112 mph wind in a derecho. I didn't even know it had 3 digits for wind on the LCD. 

Wow, that must have been a bit scary to witness! 

[ValentineWeather]

Thanks Alex. One of the North Platte meteorologist thought it may of been a heat burst. All I remember was there was TS activity in area and looks like a frontal boundary possible with the drop in temperatures and pressure rise at same time.  I'll include graphs for others. It still stands as my highest wind speed and the house shook pretty good.

Very interesting indeed. How often do you archive data locally (1 min, 5 min, 10 min...)? Would be interesting to see the higher resolution data. Sorry for going off topic again!

I do now every 30 seconds but not back then.

[Jim's Weather]

Apparently I made someone happy this morning. 

She does have her own visibility and present weather sensor on her PWS so those readings are not from the airport.

[rlund]

I am interested in purchasing your Heathkit IDW-2090 Digital Barograph kits, either or both. I live in Alaska and these would make wonderful addition to my weather station! Best Regards, Richard

[james_s]

I know this is an ancient thread but I just finally got around to documenting the adapter I built to enable a modern wind vane to be connected to the classic Heathkit ID-1590 console. Since it is a very simple circuit and I only needed one of them I hand wired the prototype on perfboard and did not bother to lay out a PCB for it. I designed it to use a "phantom power" technique that allows it to receive power directly from the Heathkit console in completely original form without needing any modifications to the console so no external power source is required. I used a set of NRG sensors I had but the Davis VantagePro boom should be directly compatible as well as any other potentiometer style wind vane.  I am not selling anything and am not interested in producing these myself so it is a DIY solution. If somebody else would like to produce them for sale go right ahead, I am releasing this to the community. It may work on other similar weather stations but I have only tested it on the ID-1590 I have where it has been in use for about a year now and continues to work perfectly.

https://github.com/james10952001/Heathkit-ID-1590-adapter

[UCWeatherstation]

Cool old weatehr station

[KerryB]

I know this is an ancient thread but I just finally got around to documenting the adapter I built to enable a modern wind vane to be connected to the classic Heathkit ID-1590 console. Since it is a very simple circuit and I only needed one of them I hand wired the prototype on perfboard and did not bother to lay out a PCB for it. I designed it to use a "phantom power" technique that allows it to receive power directly from the Heathkit console in completely original form without needing any modifications to the console so no external power source is required. I used a set of NRG sensors I had but the Davis VantagePro boom should be directly compatible as well as any other potentiometer style wind vane.  I am not selling anything and am not interested in producing these myself so it is a DIY solution. If somebody else would like to produce them for sale go right ahead, I am releasing this to the community. It may work on other similar weather stations but I have only tested it on the ID-1590 I have where it has been in use for about a year now and continues to work perfectly.

https://github.com/james10952001/Heathkit-ID-1590-adapter

Resurrecting a year comment to decades old post..will it work?

In reviewing your project notes I noticed you mention that you modified the sensor by replacing a pickup coil with a reed switch. As I have limited knowledge of the Davis Vantage Pro sensors, I have a question. I believe the 1590 uses 4 magnets and one reed switch in the anemometer portion of the sensor boom, creating 4 pulses per rotation of the cup asm. Does the Vantage Pro sensor also have 4 magnets and if not can you explain how you further modified the unit?  Thanks