Weather

I’ve always been obsessed with the weather. I have always loved everything about Nature herself, but when the ingredients come together to cause severe weather, it’s just amazing to me. Nothing is more fascinating to me than watching the energy jump to the East Coast, then blossom into a large nor’easter! I remember as a kid discovering AM weather on PBS and waking up early every morning to watch it, even in the summer when there was no school. I had gotten a police scanner at one point, and it received the National Weather Service’s NOAA weather Radio. I’d listen to that ALL the time. I’d fall asleep listening to it! Getting cable with the weather channel was awesome. Remember it was weather back then and not the lame ass shows as they have now.

Thunderstorms, too, are amazing to me. When there is enough heat and moisture in the atmosphere to form cumulus clouds, then the latent heat causes them to continue to grow into towering cumulus, then eventually cumulonimbus, where the interaction between the updrafts and down drafts causes lightning.

When I first got internet access at home in the mid-90s, the first thing I looked up was weather-related stuff. The web wasn’t like it is now back then, so it wasn’t possible to search the way it is now. Newsgroups were much bigger back then, and you could download the articles from the ones you were subscribed to, then read them offline. There was no unlimited dial-up back then. The news group I remember reading the most is ne.weather. Back then, there was so much helpful information and, of course, trolling. Then I started lurking on Wright-Weather forums. When they closed, it was on to easternuswx, then finally I now lurk on americanwx. Really, I have always lurked on these sites because I never felt I had anything to add, but there were undoubtedly some excellent posters.

I’ve had a couple of personal weather stations since I’ve had a computer. First, I had an old, cheap, shitty Oregon Scientific one that seemed to always be all over the place. It was OK, but it seemed to be all over the place at times, and things broke quickly.

After that, I got a Davis Vantage Pro2, which was awesome to have. It lasted for quite a few years until the console stopped consistently connecting to the sensors. It was really a neat toy to have, even though I never had it installed properly. It was good enough for my needs.

I did not like the console, though. It was poor contrast and slow, but it worked. It was pretty good for its time. Davis Instrument’s intention with that console wasn’t for it to be pretty. It was intended to work no matter what.

What was nice was that the sensors all seemed to work well, except the wind anemometer, but that’s only because I never got around to mounting it properly. It wouldn’t have mattered that much, because the houses and other things around here would have blocked and altered the wind anyway.

For my early Christmas gift, I received an Ambient Weather WS-5000. I have been really pleased with it so far, and it’s actually mounted, unlike the old Davis. Thus far, it’s matching up with the local weather stations on Wunderground and such.