About the Weather Station

Anemometer is on the north side of the garage.

6 ft above the crest of the roof and 26 ft above ground level. The only weak point of the station:  it should be on it's own tower and out of the disrupted airflow across the top of the garage..  Perhaps someday when I have a spare $2k kicking around.

Temp & humidity sensors are located inside the solar radiation shield mounted on the north side of the pasture fence far away from any thermal mass. The rain gauge sits atop the same post.  (Ever curious, Sara our weather puddy, just had to come see what's going on)

 

The new weather software and weather server went on line 11-7-2007. 

Location: Sampson Cove - Waldoboro, Maine       Registered ID:  KMEWALDO3

44.0675316 N    -69.3476257 W

Weather Station: Oregon Scientific  WMR-918 (wireless)
Weather Software: Virtual Weather Station  Version 14.00 P42
LIDAR:  Vaisala - CL31  located on rear deck  (out of service until repaired)
Anemometer is mounted to a steel antenna mast that extends 6 ft  above the north peak of the garage roof and 26 ft above ground level.
Rain Gauge is mounted in the open, atop a pasture fence post approx 150 ft from the house.
Outside Air Temp/humidity gauge is mounted on the north side of one of the pasture fence posts inside a solar radiation shield.
WMR-918 Data (depending on the sensor) is sampled & processed on average, once every 30 sec.  -  wind speed every 14 seconds
Processed Weather Data and graphs are uploaded to our server approximately once every 15minutes...
Data is uploaded to the WeatherUnderground once every hour
Raw data is sampled every minute
LIDAR data is sampled once every 15 minutes from a Vaisala CL31  (note: currently out of service)
The Hi-Res webcam image is acquired from a retired Olympus Digital camera at 1024x768 every 10 minutes

Automated Operations:


Every minute:

jpg images are captured every minute from the time lapse video camera at 640x480 resolution. Next the text data from the weather station is converted into a bitmap and stamped into each jpg.  Another even further compressed jpg of the tide graph is also created.   The three visual elements are then merged into one jpg and saved in a temporary folder.  These jpg's will be used later to generate the time lapse weather video.....   Images begin being acquired 30 minutes before sunrise to 40 minutes after sunset in the summer months, and somewhat less in the winter months when the period of civil twilight is less.  This calculation is derived from the sunrise and sunset data provided by the Oregon weather station.

Every 5 minutes:

the following is performed:  The tides are calculated running WXTide32 and the hi-res tide graph is compressed to a jpg for the net.  Next the flash movie of the Storm Predator loop is created which begins with making an avi movie from the acquire jpg images Storm Predator saves. From the avi movie, we then create a Flash movie and add the appropriate controls. Unlike Storm predator that  contains only the past 24 frames, , the animation loop spans 81 frames or approximately the last 4.5 hours of radar imagery and a delay added to the end of the loop that automatically repeats.  Since NOAA updates radar imagery more often in inclement weather, the time span of the loop is not cast in concrete, but has some variability.

Every 10 minutes:

The hi-res webcam image is acquired from an Olympus C-730UZ digital camera to which a time and date stamp is added, and then converted to a 1024x768 jpg for the web server. This task is scheduled to run every 10 minutes from approximately 15 min before sunrise, to approx 15 min after sunset. At the end of the day, the last image is left on the server until operation resumes again.

Every hour:

The jpg images of assembled jpg's that were acquired every minute are then made into an AVI movie.  The AVI movie is then used to create a Flash movie where as before, controls are added.  The file size property is read and converted into a small text file and FTP'd to our main isp so that the current file size is made known.

Every 2 hours:

The NOAA ftp server is polled for the latest severe weather warnings and latest 7 day forecast.  The raw text of the 7 day forecast is then parsed into an html file that has day headings that are capitalized, and broken into separate paragraphs, making it much easier to read.

Every 24 hours - end of day.

This is when general "house cleaning" and organization takes place, to prepare for the next day..

At the end of the day (11:57pm local)  the time lapse movie is renamed to yymmdd.swf  and a copy made to a temp folder. It is then archived.  Folders named for the appropriate year and month in the format yymmdd are created if they already do not exist.   After archiving, the other copy is renamed again and then becomes "Yesterday's Movie".  Finally, all the jpg images are deleted from the temp time lapse folder to make way for tomorrow's new time lapse movie which begins 30 minutes before sunrise and runs until 40 minutes after sunset. The radar  flash movie is also archived and the prior day's images are then deleted.

Finally, a registry scan is run to clean up the mess left over at the end of the day by windows.

Server Hardware and connection:

Weather Data & Webcam images are hosted locally by our own server running Apache 2.2.11 which is operational 24/7 with the exception of when down for routine maintenance, upgrades or at the approach of a severe thunderstorm.  Our WebCam/Weather/Tides server has it's own assigned static ip address,  &  for security reasons, is not part of our other internal networks. 

The physical server itself is a HP xw8200 Xeon with Dual 3.2 GHz processors with 4 GB of memory and a 160 GB striped RAID disk array running Windows XP Pro.

ISP:  Time Warner Cable Business Class (Cable)...   Transfer speeds (just measured via Speakeasy) typically average 2400 kbps up, and 15980 kbps down.  However, depending on other shared connections and speed of the net itself at any particular instant, these speeds can vary widely.

The station is also part of the  Weather Exchange and Weather Underground ®.

http://www.ambientweather.com/  

http://www.wunderground.com/

 Our station ID is:  KMEWALDO3  (the letter O)

 

 

Station Siting and Global Warming



The image to the left here shows a station that has been properly sited.

The Station is not in close proximity to hot asphalt, man made structures, air conditioning exhausts or a host of other heat sources.  One would assume this would be practical common sense, but far too many of the stations used to collect our climatic data fail to meet even the  most basic of siting standards.

In many cases where the station had been previously properly sited decades ago, urban sprawl has encroached upon the stations, surrounding them.  This was generally a slow process and seems no one took notice or never occurred to anyone that the slow encroachment might be interpreted as proof of global warming.

Think this just a few isolated cases ?   Think again....     read on.....

- - - - - - -

The accuracy of any station (assuming the sensors themselves are reasonably accurate (to within .5 degrees) depends almost entirely on how the station is sited... that is: where the sensors are located.    Inadequate solar radiation shielding, proximity to large thermal masses, exhaust vents, Air Conditioning units, solar reflections, placed in close proximity to concrete, or even worse: black asphalt surfaces including asphalt shingles, can severely corrupt the air temperature readings...  One would think it would be basic common sense.  Anyone who has ever walked across a hot asphalt parking lot on a sunny day will clearly get the message. It is a serious problem..   It would be akin to setting the temperature sensor in the influence of the warm airflow of an  air conditioner exhaust, or within 50 feet of hot asphalt, and then wondering why the recorded temperatures are so warm....

A penetrating glimpse of the obvious you're probably saying to yourself...   What group of professionals  would be dumb enough to do such a thing ?    You'd be amazed !   Not even some of our leading Universities teaching environmental sciences (see below), including NOAA themselves by their own admission, are immune from improper station siting. 

The inaccuracies induced by sensors affected by surrounding warm surfaces, exhausts or infrared reflections, has become so severe, that it puts into question the very validity of the temperature data collected in the past 30 to 40 years, and in many instances, all but guaranteeing that the data is flawed...  That data being collected from poorly sited stations, is the very same data being used to determine whether Global Warming is occurring.    Preliminary results of station surveys being conducted as this page is being written,  suggests that Global Warming may be far less than commonly assumed....    


Most people have never heard of this problem before. Yet the problem nothing new.  It is well recognized and documented in meteorological circles.

"The 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme to the Third Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded that the ability to monitor the global climate was inadequate and deteriorating."

That was over a decade ago and the problem has gotten worse. Yet little has been done to address it until just recently.

So just how bad is the problem you're probably wondering ?


As of Jan 25, 2009, 854 of the 1221 USHCN  (United States Historical Climatology Network) stations that make up our nations official weather data network, 89% of them fail to meet NOAA's own minimal standards for siting and accuracy. (CRN ratings of 1 and 2 are deemed acceptable with limits of error under 1 deg C (1.8 deg F)), yet they make up only a paltry 11% of the stations surveyed so far. 

As an aside, recall how some of our scientists are sounding the alarm proclaiming 20 ft sea rises and melting of the ice caps based on global temps rising by a mere 2 def F  ???   Keep that in mind as you read on...

Consider, that the worst stations (CRN=4) make up 58% of the total so far surveyed and those have calculated errors of greater than 2 to as much as 4 deg C  or 3.6 to 7.2 deg F. (far more than enough to get the global warming "scientists" in a panicked "tizzy").  Even worse, CRN=5 stations that account for 11% of the stations surveyed, have a calculated error exceeding 5 deg C or a staggering 9 deg F...  - the operative being "greater than", so the errors are actually more !

Wouldn't be so bad if the errors were both plus and minus, as they would then tend to cancel out.  But all these errors are ALL attributable to extraneous heat sources resulting in data readings being higher than the actual true air temperature.

Those are  staggering errors by any  measure, and is cause for alarm (or at least should be).  After all, the US taxpayers will be on the hook for literally trillions to combat Global Warming if "Cap and Trade" HR2454 is passed. It would be comforting to know that the data being collected to justify such massive expenditures, isn't flawed if not outright bogus.  http://www.surfacestations.org/   It's just not a US problem, but also a world wide global problem.  Urban sprawl and development isn't limited to just the US......

Unfortunately, there is no way to undo decades of flawed collected data....  

http://wbztv.com/weatherfeatures/climate/surface.stations.weather.2.1008615.html

Read more on the issue:

http://static.cbslocal.com/station/wbz/wbz/2009/may/SurfaceStations.pdf

http://wbztv.com/local/surface.stations.weather.2.1008615.html

 

(Interesting to note that even WBZ-TV's own weather station by conducting their own survey for this broadcast,  sits atop their asphalt roof amidst air conditioning exhaust in close proximity - but at least that's not an official  USHCN station...)   and  at least WBZ-TV openly admitted their own station's poor siting...    Anyways, Kudos to WBZ  for airing it !

List of USHCN (United States Historical Climatology Network) stations surveyed to date including their documented siting problems and ratings:  http://www.surfacestations.org/USHCN_stationlist.htm

Here's just one example.... None other than The University of Arizona Atmospheric Sciences dept that is training our future environment scientists

 

The University of Arizona Dept of Atmospheric Sciences official station
(Yes ...  this is one of the stations who's data was collectively used to conclude that Global Warming is serious and real )

Might not be so bad or even possibly understandable, if this were a private home station installed by a rank amateur.....
 but this one was installed, maintained & under the supervision of the faculty professors teaching Atmospheric Sciences. 

One would think if anyone should know better, much less have even basic common sense; it would be those teaching Atmospheric Sciences. 
Oblivious to the errors, they point to their data and scream Global Warming !

Yes, their data does clearly show that. (just look at the graph).  After all, coming from such a prestigious source, the data doesn't lie, right ?

However, when they sited the station, one has to really wonder, what were they possibly thinking ???

Not so widely published is a picture of the station and where they chose to locate it...

The purpose of this page is not to pick on the University of AZ - God knows they have lots of company (NOAA included !) - but rather to highlight the problem.

Not so widely published in any of their reports is this picture. The station sits in the middle of an asphalt parking lot that gets so hot, one cannot touch the pavement on a sunny day. (After all; this is Arizona !) How can the temp measurements not possibly be affected ?

Could it possibly be that it's not global warming they're measuring, but rather the heated air rising off the hot pavement ?  Even cats and dogs have enough common sense to avoid hot asphalt on sunny summer days.   

Ironic perhaps, but they were so proud of  their station, that they just had to erect an official placard !
All that precision expensive equipment rendered useless.
(or at least the temperature data). Yet the data is deemed valid.
One question comes to mind: How did this station ever get certified in the first place ???

Read more at:      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/07/25/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-24/

Just a hunch, but should they relocate the station to a large open grass area not far away out of view, then it would be an absolute certainty they would then be sounding the alarm for Global Cooling...

It wouldn't be so bad if  this were just an isolated case, but sadly as the survey has documented;  it is not !

This is basic grade school physics...    Even cats, dogs and other creatures down on the insect and even bacteria level, have the basic common sense to avoid hot asphalt and stay in the shade on hot summer days.......   or in the winter months, to bask in the warmth of such influences in the dead of winter to stay warm. 

Result: the temperature data recorded is greater (and possibly far greater) than the actual real temperature.

That's not to say that Global Warming isn't real to some extent..   Exactly how much ?  Who knows, as NOAA won' t even admit to the obvious problem as even existing. Course, what agency would be stupid enough to air their "dirty laundry" for all to see, so to speak...  Kudos for at least being politically astute anyways...     But it certainly implies that perhaps Global Warming probably is not the "Boogey Man" it's being made out to be.  Shouldn't take much of a rocket scientist to figure out that making decisions based on erroneous data, all but insures the wrong decision will be arrived at...   Yet ironically, that's seems to be exactly the course we are embarking on.

Food for thought:

We expect and demand for something so basic that our police have radar guns that are calibrated and accurate before issuing us speeding tickets.  Pilots bet their lives and the lives of their passengers that the altimeters and navigation data entered in to their GPS's are accurate.  (You better pray that's the case the next time you board a commercial flight)..  So;  is it any less reasonable to expect that our climatalogical data be any less accurate where it is used to base important decisions, before we embark on a Global Warming Crusade that comes with a multi-trillion dollar price tag ?     

Whether you believe that Global Warming is a real threat or not ....      It is a fair question....

 

ClimateGate Nov 2009 -  Global Warming Climatology Scandal

In early November 2009 a hacker broke into the email and other document files of  the Climatic Research Unit  at the University of East Anglia.   What was revealed and posted on line for the world to see in those emails was damning evidence putting into question the very data which is being relied on by both the UN, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) and individual nations who rely on the validity of the data to set Global Warming - Environmental policy... 

Email correspondence clearly revealed that data had been both ignored as well as outright forged to make the outcome match the intended (Global Warming) results...

Furthermore, plenty of evidence instructing others how to hide data and their sources from Freedom of Information requests so the data could be checked and verified...    Being so called scientists, why is the data suddenly so secretive ?   In several instances, data was allegedly destroyed so as not to reveal the source...  (supposedly so it could not be verified perhaps ??? - what other reason could there be to delete precious data ???)

Other emails involved how to do away with any dissent about Global Warming..     Such niceties such as...

How to dis-credit dissenters.

Tips on ways to have funding cut off for any one or group with opposing views

How to hide data from Freedom of Information requests

Banning from publication any scientific paper with opposing views

The CRU admits that the emails are valid and not forgeries....

So damning are the emails and supporting documentation, that their mere existence strongly suggests that Global Warming might prove to be the world's greatest hoax and money grab yet.....

This has just started to launch criminal investigations into the areas of fraud and racketeering...    That is: perpetrating a hoax so as to create an imaginary problem and then by buying carbon credits, the "problem" can be cured..     That's called fraud and racketeering....    If true, then Bernie Madoff was small fry by comparison.

The emails read like a Who's Who in the top echelons of Global Warming research, implicating even NASA - Goddard as well...

Even Obama's  Science Czar John Holdren is now directly involved and implicated in CRU’s unfolding Climate-Gate (Climategate)  scandal. 


So many examples, but here is just one....

The graph to the top left is the what's known as the infamous "Hockey Stick Graph" .   Created by a Mr Michael Mann and adopted by Dr Al Gore to clearly depict global warming, it seems the graph has one minor problem....   It's completely bogus....   The graph has little to do with the original historical data. The chart below shows the actual global temperature.

There was this little problem with reality...  Exactly how does one explain the dramatic medieval warming period (MWP) around 1100 to 1300 AD ?  During that period, the planet was much warmer than it is now..    In fact, the country of Greenland was named Greenland for that very reason...  Greenland at that time was green !  No SUV's, heavy industry or large human carbon footprints to explain it...  or how about the mini - ice age around 1600...    Those created "pesky problems" that no one in the Global Warming camp had any burning desire to address, as in doing so, would suggest that there are much more powerful forces than man that affect Global Warming and cooling....  (You think maybe the sun might have something do do with it perhaps ???)

Solution:   Falsify the data to make it appear that only man has had an effect on global temperatures..  

In fact, for the past 10 years, global temperatures have been declining...   Solution to that:    Don't include the last 10 years of actual data !

Seems the CRU staff was hired not on the basis of their being climate scientists, but rather on their ability to outright falsify  the data to achieve the desired result.

Put rather bluntly; the data was fudged to fit with what was politically expected..  Subsequent emails allegedly reveal that both Michael Mann (who fabricated the hockey stick graph and the CRU knew the graph was completely bogus, but it was published anyways ...   That was perhaps the Real Inconvenient Truth...

I know I'll take a lot of "heat" over this for expressing my views, but before cursing my views, bear in mind that I'm not the one who wrote those damning emails or documents...    They are what they are...  

What is really perplexing is the virtual news blackout by the mainstream broadcasters to date...   With trillions of taxpayer dollars at stake depending on the validity of the scientific data, one might have assumed it would be a major story....     The fact that it doesn't even bear mention, suggests that the Global Warming Hoax is real and they as evidenced by their silence on the matter, must be part of it...

With literally Trillions in taxpayer dollars and carbon credits at stake if "Cap and Trade" passes based on Global Warming being a real threat, it's unlikely the Global Warming alarmists will not be easily dissuaded with so much money to be made....      After all, no global warming means no funding...

In light of this scandal, that changes  my view completely that poor station sightings are just an oversight....  It goes a long way to explaining why there is no motivation to clean up the poor station sightings as noted above...

Whether mankind induced carbon dioxide is the primary cause for Global Warming or not, has now been cast into severe doubt...   Seems our leading climatalogical researchers, have another agenda..   What is also especially disturbing is the proclamation by some of our Politicians, that "There is nothing in the emails  to cast doubt on the Science"...   As an engineer, I find such statements incredible...   Do they actually believe that falsifying data, ignoring and destroying other "inconvenient" data and censoring all dissenting opinion has no bearing on the Science, and expect me to believe it as well ???   Now I know that this is Washington DC and all, but what an amazing if not disturbing statement to make....    What exactly are these politicians thinking ?  (Being politicians probably explains it would be my guess)   What rational thinking person could not be disturbed by such statements ?  Instead of idiotic statements such as that, they should have been calling for investigations and removal of all that were implicated  - not in effect condoning such actions....   Heck; since falsifying data has no bearing on the science, why not just scrap all the weather stations with their expensive instrumentation and save a pile of taxpayers dollars and just  make up all the data from scratch.  That we we could eliminate the middle step of having to falsify it later to have it fit the desired result !   Coming to think of it, why stop there ?  We could fudge data for just about anything else for that matter since doing so has no affect on the science !    (Perhaps not too far fetched an idea.)   Scary thought, but these are some of our elected officials running our country.   No wonder we're in serious trouble !

Aside from the moronic statements made by our elected politicians that seem to have their own agenda, what exactly were the so called  scientists  themselves thinking ?  Seems the data was revealing something other than the outcome they were hired for to produce.   Their actions have now cast doubt on decades of research on the very theory they were trying to promote...    Even those believing that global warming is real and we face planet Armageddon in the next 20 years should we fail to immediately act, should be up in arms over what they did... No matter what side one is on, there is no excuse for falsifying data or silencing opposing views.....      Shame...    These people must  be forced to resign their positions lest the entire climate research be deemed a complete hoax....  (personal view anyways.....)

"The Time for Debate is Clearly Over" has been the mantra....   What BS  (sorry..... no other way to put it.)     In true science, debate is never over...  Anyone proclaiming that it is, is certainly no true scientist.  If the debate was ever truly over, the earth would still be flat and the entire universe would still be orbiting about the earth.  Used to be a time when dissenters would be burned at the stake for suggesting anything that would detract from the establishment's wealth, power and ability to control the masses...      Today they just falsify, ignore or delete the "troublesome" data, censor dissent, cut off funding and ruin careers for all those with opposing views...   My how we've advanced !     (just an observation....)

 

This is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak.... For lots more info, start with these sites.....

http://www.climatedepot.com/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Better yet: download everything and decide for yourself...    http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails,_data,_models,_1996-2009

Groundhog Day - Candlemas

Perhaps in light of the CRU and the IPCC falsifying data to fit their political agendas, perhaps in some twisted way, Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day may be a far better prognosticator of future weather conditions. At least he doesn't call sunny, overcast, or pouring down rain, sunny conditions...  and its doubtful he has any knowledge of hockey stick graphs !

 Anyways, It's no accident that Groundhog Day and Candlemas are celebrated together, for both are closely related... each signifying the triumph of light over darkness, spring over winter.

Candlemas was originally a Celtic festival marking the midpoint of the season.  Why Feb 2nd ???    Feb 2nd most years marks the Sun's declination as being halfway in its advance from the winter solstice to the spring equinox.  It was not without religious ties as well...  The Christian church expanded this festival of light to commemorate the purification of the Virgin Mary and her presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple. Candlelit processions accompanied the feast day. A central part of the festivities was the forecasting of either the arrival of an early spring or a winter that would linger. Sunshine on Candlemas was said to indicate the return of winter. Similarly, "When the wind’s in the east on Candlemas Day , there it will stick till the second of May."

A bear was the "bearer"  (pun brazenly intended) of the forecast to the people of France and England, while those in Germany adopted the badger as their prognosticator. In the 1800s, German immigrants to Pennsylvania brought with them their Candlemas legends.  Problem was; seems there were no badgers in the area !   What to do ???  There were however lots of groundhogs.  Ergo: the groundhog became the New World's recognized prognosticator of whether or not we would have an early or late spring.

Today that lore has grown into a full-blown festival in no other than Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, with Punxsutawney Phil presiding for over the past 120 years as of 2010. For all things groundhog, visit  the 
folks at Punxsutawney and see what Phil is predicting this year.  Beware: on Feb 2, it might be difficult to establish a connection, as their servers get "pounded"...   Also Wikipedia has some interesting information including Phil's historical predictions dating from 1887 to 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day

Punxsutawney Phil isn't the only groundhog to make predictions....

There is also.....

Balzac Billy Balzac Alberta Canada
Buckeye Chuck Marion, Ohio
Dunkirk Dave Dunkirk, NY
French Creek Freddie French Creek, WV
General Beauregard Lee Snelville, Georgia
Jimmy the Groundhog Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
Malverne Mel Malverne,NY
Octoraro Orphie Quarryville, PA
Queen Charlotte Charlotte, NC
Roxboro Naba Philadelphia, PA
Shubenacadie Sam Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia Canada
Sir Walter Willy Raleigh, NC
Spanish Joe Spanish Ontario Canada
Staten Island Chuck Staten Island, NY
West Indies Wilbur British West Indies
Wianton Willie Wiorton, Ontario Canada
Woodstock Willie Woodstock, Illinois

Yet Punxsutawney Phil is the one most widely recognized...

Lore or not, there must be something to it....  even NOAA officially credits Punxsutawney Phil with his observations.

 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/extremes/2006/groundhog.html    

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

 

Weather Station News

Sept 21, 2009

The Time Lapse Movie sample time has been decreased from 60 sec to 30 sec and played back at 15 fps.  The  shorter days allow for smoother animation without file sizes exceeding 10mb

June 26, 2009

Added station pictures

May 10, 2009

The Time Lapse Movie sample time has been increased from 30 sec to 60 sec and played back at 10 fps.  The long days have resulted in file sizes sometimes exceeding 10 mb.

Radar images have been added to the webcam page.   Current local forecasts  via Server Side Includes have been added as well.

April 13, 2009

The real time tide info is back after strengthening the legal disclaimer.

April 5, 2009

The old Compaq 1.2 GHz system that had only 640 mb of memory (the max it would accept) with a 60gb hard drive, has been replaced with a HP xw8200 dual Xeon Server with a 3.2 GHz processor with 4 gb of ram with a striped RAID 0 320gb disk array.   The old system performed adequately for years, but  when daily time lapse movies were added to the webcam page and updated each hour, and with all the other applications running, it started to slow to a crawl - especially with the weather station software having to update the graphs and strip charts continuously..   Generating a 1700 frame Flash movie used to take 32 minutes by the end of the day...   The new system performs the same task in   2 min 52 seconds !   Still some bugs to be worked out, since migrating the applications to the new system never goes perfectly....

April 3, 2009

Fixed some pesky JavaScript code causing IE 7 to get CSS Style sheets  confused and butcher the Time Lapse selection buttons.  Firefox also exhibited the problem but in a different way...   Took only 7 frustrating hours to find.  Problem is that I only have very basic Java skills, so what would have taken a good Java programmer only minutes to spot, took me a mind numbing 7 hrs .......

March 30, 2009

Local Tide calculations have been removed from the site...

Several legal cases despite the disclaimers that tidal data must not  be used for navigation purposes, has resulted in the host of the site being held accountable for damages both real and punitive resulting in loss of property...  Seems we live in a very litigious society where giving away even free information bears serious risk....

With regret, the on-line Waldoboro Tide information will no longer be made available... 

March 26, 2009

Still "playing" with the time lapse software, trying to obtain the best balance between file size  and quality of the image.  320x240 was simply too small to see much detail (although the file size was wonderfully compact.  640x480 delivers reasonable quality after being highly compressed.   The VP7 codec would be even better, as it generates file sizes half to almost 1/3rd the size of Flash with the same apparent quality, but would mean creating a wmv movie file with it's own limitations.  The major hurdle is something I  can't control, as to view it, would require each viewer to install that codec, as it is not  included with the standard fare of codecs already installed on most people's systems...   (The casual viewer probably won't bother)... Also issues of having to allow Active-X controls while running Internet Explorer...   By comparison, Flash poses none of those issues and unlike wmv players, is generally platform independent, meaning that it "plays nicely" with Windows, Macs, Linux, Unix etc.

Also some issues as to luminance of the Hauppauge capture board which produced images far too dark with no way to control the brightness or setup levels.  Hauppauge's idea of support was to buy another one and see if that cured the problem...  (Never again !) The temporary solution was to put an unused TBC with proc amp in the line to overdrive the video levels to compensate for the capture board's mis-comings..... 

At the end of the day, a script automates the process where yesterdays video gets updated to the new "Yesterday's video", temporary files are cleaned up, and the current movie is archived.

Next bright idea is to have  a calendar pull-down menu perhaps, to pull up movies from the archive.... 

March 21, 2009

a new composite video webcam has been installed...   What should have taken 30 minutes, ended up taking the better part of an entire afternoon...  Still a better permanent mount  to build and some new software issues to deal with, so expect sporadic operation until things become finalized...

March 14, 2009

I've always been fascinated with time lapse photography  and would make time lapse movies of the tides in the cove on occasion...  But this was not enough to satisfy the craving for more... 

What I thought would be interesting just to do for myself, was to automate the entire process and create Flash movies of the conditions on a daily basis.....  What I thought what  might even be more informative, would be to add some of the Station data to the image as it was being recorded....   One then could clearly see the relationship between cloud cover, wind shifts, humidity etc and "see" their effect on temperature...   Shouldn't take most observers capable of self reasoned thought to figure out it's the solar loading and radiational cooling that dramatically affects the  temperature and not the CO2 levels.

 


 

Snowfall Totals
Winter Seasons of 2008-2010 
Date - Amount - Accumulated Season Total to Date

Date inch amount Season Total
     
Dec 19, 2008 3 3
Dec 21, 2008 16 19
Dec 24, 2008 1 20
Jan 08, 2009 2 22
Jan 11, 2009 5 27
Jan 18, 2009 4 31
Jan 19, 2009 3 34
Jan 28, 2009 6 40
Feb 04, 2009 1 41
Feb 19, 2009 4 45
Feb 22, 2009 7 52
Mar 02, 2009 7 59
Total   59 inches

 

Date inch amount Season Total
     
Oct 18, 2009 Trace 0
Nov 05, 2009 1 1
Dec 06, 2009 5 6
Dec 09, 2009 8 14
Dec 19, 2009 1 15
Dec 28, 2009 1 16
Dec 30, 2009 2 18
Jan 01, 2010 1 19
Jan 02, 2010 8 27
Jan 18, 2010 8 35
Jan 19, 2010 4 39
Jan 20, 2010 1 40
Feb 03, 2010 1 41

 

2008 - 2009   2009 - 2010

 

The annual season average  is 70 inches of Snow

Record Low Temperature since this station became operational:  minus 26.1 deg f        Recorded 7am Jan 16, 2009

Sampson Cove completely froze over for the first time this year 12-22-2008   (the earliest that's been observed since moving here in 2000)

Total Rain 2009: 53.8 inches

 

For National or other region Snow Analysis and depths, go to NOAA   http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/

2008 Totals: Jan 1 to Jan 1
(Total annual rainfall and annual Heating Degree totals are reset to zero Jan 1st)

 

  Total Rain: 47.84"                              (historical average: 48.03") *
Annual Heating Degree Days: 7284   (historical average: 7353) *

For 2008, both rainfall and degree heating totals have fallen within the normal averages for Waldoboro, Maine

* Yearly Totals were undoubtedly somewhat higher, considering the few times the station was down for repair/maintenance
or there were system/server problems, power failures etc where no data was recorded. Most notable: 2 days in Dec 2008
where we were without power due to the ice storm. That alone would have added another approx 80 degrees to
the annual Heating Degree Day total, making 2008 slightly colder but still well within the limits of what is considered normal.

 

Current Station Status & History of previous events

 
 

Current Status  UP

9-23-2009     With shorter days, the weather movie time lapse interval has been reduced
                    from 60 sec to 30 sec for smoother animation
09-22-2009    Problem with Internet Explorer V8 and Shadowbox not working. Forced
                    emulation of IE V7 as a temporary fix.
09-12-2009    Different update intervals caused non-linear graphs. Database edited.
08-26-2009    Temp sensor has been bad for the past 4 days - repaired
04-15-2009    Pressure sensor failed - replaced batteries
04-05-2009    Installed new HP xw8200 Xeon Server
03-21-2009    Installed new webcam for Time Lapse Video.
03-04-2009    LIDAR (cloud base measurement) out of service
02-20-2009    Anemometer literally frozen..  Thawed out (2-25)
02-07-2009    New Apache Server Software was installed. 12 hrs of data not collected
02-05-2009    Software upgrades

02-01-2009    Station down for routine maintenance for about 45 minutes.
01-13-2009    Server Crashed - Power Supply Failed = Replaced.
11-21-2008    Pressure sensor failed -    Replaced batteries
09-27-2008    Rain Gauge died again.  This time I replaced the entire unit
09-14-2008    Replaced batteries in rain gauge
09-07-2008    Server Crash took out past 30 days of data. Restore from archive set
03-22-2008    Down for maintenance 3:25pm to 4:40 pm

 

 

About The WebCam

BLACK - NO IMAGE

The webcam occasionally goes off line at random times, where all that's viewable is a black jpg image.  Turns out the kittens just love playing with the cables, and so far, no amount of other cat toy diversions or serious discussions with them on the matter, has had the least effect  (like most other discussions, coming to think of it)....   Short of running all the cables in metal conduit and enclosing the camera in an explosion proof steel plated housing (both impractical), no other solution comes quickly to mind.  So, I know when I'm beat.

Until they outgrow their boundless energy, or they replace the webcam with something better on their long list of other fun things to trash that must be revisited and "checked off" every few days, expect a black webcam screen from time to time !

Kishka's kittens typically operate in roving gangs of  3 at once. It often amounts to a highly efficient coordinated assault that would do any Military Commander proud. So whenever you see a black webcam image, just imagine the mayhem and destructive forces at play going on behind the scenes !   Whatever you can imagine (and it will probably be quite a bit) will probably pale in comparison  to the reality ! 

1024x768 Images are captured & transferred directly to our local server once every minute -  between the hours of sunrise and sunset using a "retired" Olympus C-730 "Ultra Zoom" 3 MP digital Camera. Images are uploaded at a reduced resolution of 1024x768, which seems to be a reasonable compromise between those
with dial-up and broadband connections. Even so, a broadband connection makes for a far better experience. The image before being saved is Time and Date Stamped, along with the Temp, Humidity, Wind Speed/Direction, Barometric Pressure and trend which is acquired from the weather station database .

Compressing the images into a Flash Movie is cpu intensive, so movies are updated on average about once every two hours.

During the hours of darkness, the WebCam is not active. However the last image of the day is normally left on the server until webcam operation resumes the next morning. From time to time, we make changes to the camera zoom and view of the cove, or (truth be known) when we accidently bump into the camera !

The camera is controlled by Pine Tree Computing's  Camera Controller:   http://www.pinetreecomputing.com/camctl.asp

For  lists of other webcams:

 Webcam Index - Live Webcams
Webcam World - Live Webcams
http://www.webcam-list.com
 

Heating Degree Days

Heating Degrees for Jan 2009: Historical Average = 1361   Actual this month:  1518
January turned out to be markedly colder than the historical average amounting to an additional 157 Heating Degree Days for the month.
This translates into having to purchase on average, an additional 1.88 million BTU's in energy to stay warm in January...

Annual average Heating Degree Days for the Midcoast area of Maine: 7353 **

(Source: NOAA 1971-2000)

Interpreting the graphs

** Heating Degree Day: 

Days where heat is required to maintain a standard comfort level of 65 deg f, are measured in heating degree-days. For a day with a mean average temperature of 40o F, 25 heating degree-days would be recorded (65 minus 40) since you would have to heat the home by 25 deg f to maintain a standard comfort level of 65. Heating degree day totals can simply be added together. For example: Two identical cold days as before, would result in a total of 50 heating degree-days for the 2-day period or over any other time period as desired.  The annual total is merely the sum of all the Degree Heating Days.  Why is this number important ?  - - -  It determines how much fuel you will have to consume. The higher the number; the greater your heating bill !

Why is 65 deg f  the standard reference at which point one must heat to maintain a minimum comfort level ?  Some standard had to be agreed on, and 65 deg f was the lowest temp most people would feel comfortable at, so that became the standard agreed reference. 

A comprehensive energy audit is somewhat involved, but there are some handy rules of thumb that are amazingly accurate for typical residential construction..  For a 2500 sq ft building of average insulation and envelope tightness in the northern climes, figure on a heat loss of 12,000 BTU per Heating Degree Day...   In other words if the average outside temp is 64 over a 24 hour period, and you wish to heat it to maintain 65 deg f, that would be 1 Degree Heating Day and you would have to generate a total of 12,000 BTU over that 24 hour period to maintain a 65 deg temperature.  

Thus the total amount of heating BTU's required annually for Waldoboro Maine where the average  annual degree heating is 7353 degrees, would be 12,000 BTU per Degree heating day x 7353 Degree Heating Days = 88.23  Million BTU's...    To find the total estimated heating cost, take the 88.23 Million BTU's and multiply by the cost per million BTU for the fuel you will be using.  For example: if oil costs $25 per million BTU, then you could expect an annual heating bill of  88.23 x $25 = $2205.00.  (There is a handy Fuel Cost Comparison chart elsewhere on this page.  I don't keep it updated often, so you'll have to obtain the current prices..   Click Here to Go To The Chart ).  That's assuming one maintains the home at 65 deg f...  But what if one desires or needs to maintain the home at 75 instead of 65 as is often the case for our Senior Citizens ???

To make the adjustment to determine the annual heating degrees, one must first determine the daily average. Here in Waldoboro Maine, the annual average annual heating degrees required  is 7353. To find the daily average, divide 7353 by 365 days in a year = 20.145.  Then add the number of additional degrees above 65 you would like to maintain the temperature at.  (if you want to heat to 75, then add the difference between 65 and 75, which is  75-65 = 10 deg to the daily average. The new adjusted daily average then becomes (20.145+10 = 30.145 average degree days.) Then multiply 30.145 x 365 days in a year to determine the annual degree heating days to maintain the building at 75 deg f (30.145*365= 11002.  Compared to the original 7353 based on maintaining 65 deg f, maintaining one's home temperature at 75 deg f will require an additional 3649 annual heating degree days or a 49% increase in your final heating bill.   (Those 3649 additional degree heating days will require 3649*12,000 BTU per degree or a total of an ADDITIONAL 43.7 Million BTU's...  This little exercise makes it pretty simple to calculate energy costs by maintaining your home at different temperatures...

Course, the actual BTU's required per heating degree, depends on how tight the building envelope is, the total effective R value, solar loading, burner efficiency etc, but it gets you in the ballpark and is valuable for estimating heating costs should you desire to "pull up stakes" and move to another area of the country.  Consider also that building structures in warmer climates, may have less insulation or often no insulation at all, with much higher BTU requirements per Heating Degree Day...

Locations in close proximity to the ocean or other large bodies of water are often warmer in winter and cooler in  summer than other locations often just a mile away from the water.

 

 

Why does the 7 Day Degree Heating Graph appear
like a saw tooth waveform during the heating season ?

Since the daily total resets to zero at midnight, so does the graph.  The ramp function is because the daily heating degree value is based on the AVERAGE outdoor temperature over a 24 hour period.  To derive the average temperature and compute the heating degrees, the program continues to sample the outdoor temperature at fixed intervals over each 24 hour daily period, then subtract that from 65 and then divide by the number of samples taken over the 24 hour period, then store the value in a matrix where all those time slices are then summed.   The end result is the final summation of Heating Degrees and is depicted by the peaks.  If this sounds like a description of an integral, that's because it is... By adding up all the little time slices wherein the measurements  were made, one is actually witnessing a live real time demo of the software performing a Calculus Integral function.

 

 

Heating Degree Day Normals
(base 65 f ) based on observation period 1961-1990
  Jan   Feb   Mar   Apr   May   Jun  Jul     Aug    Sep    Oct   Nov    Dec Annual
Maine Locations:
Augusta 1426 1212 1026 651 319 77 15 36 190 505 822 1271 7550
Bangor 1473 1266 1079 693 363 90 21 42 219 533 849 1302 7930
Belfast 1352 1168 995 657 344 88 14 29 180 484 780 1206 7297
Bridgton 3 NW 1482 1263 1082 708 347 102 19 61 238 564 873 1318 8057
Brunswick 1389 1184 1008 651 353 90 7 40 183 499 798 1218 7420
Corinna 1587 1364 1132 723 360 101 24 67 263 601 927 1414 8562
Eastport 1339 1170 1045 729 468 219 93 85 243 518 786 1181 7876
Ellsworth 1383 1201 1035 690 381 105 17 45 201 508 804 1234 7604
Farmington 1606 1372 1175 756 412 136 39 91 300 623 942 1414 8866
Jackman 1708 1484 1308 870 493 182 77 129 351 685 1023 1525 9835
Lewiston 1389 1184 1004 639 303 53 5 22 155 471 798 1221 7244
Long Falls Dam 1652 1436 1277 861 496 187 79 130 345 673 999 1476 9611
Madison 1566 1347 1138 729 388 110 24 65 254 589 903 1376 8489
Middle Dam 1674 1464 1287 876 505 200 98 139 339 688 1011 1491 9772
Portland 1370 1168 992 651 363 100 11 39 189 512 789 1194 7378
Rumford 1 SSE 1504 1280 1091 696 352 90 27 62 231 555 882 1339 8109
Sanford 2 NNW 1349 1148 961 609 278 58 7 30 158 471 786 1197 7052
Waldoboro 1361 1164 988 648 363 101 15 40 188 510 786 1189 7353
Waterville 1417 1196 1008 636 295 61 7 26 174 487 816 1259 7382
West Buxton 2 NNW 1463 1254 1060 693 369 107 21 62 241 574 867 1290 8001
New Hampshire Locations: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
Benton 5 SW 1491 1282 1094 705 359 110 36 79 267 577 900 1333 8233
Berlin 1575 1352 1163 738 383 107 33 84 277 611 930 1392 8645
Bethlehem 1535 1308 1113 723 359 114 46 80 271 605 942 1380 8476
Blackwater Dam 1454 1243 1045 666 336 81 12 56 229 561 849 1280 7812
Colebrook 1634 1403 1212 798 446 168 77 123 326 657 975 1438 9257
Concord 1438 1210 1011 633 312 70 13 39 196 533 837 1262 7554
Deering 1361 1162 992 618 278 61 8 35 182 496 804 1228 7225
Durham 1327 1120 946 609 304 66 8 34 162 474 774 1178 7002
Epping 1327 1117 949 606 297 61 8 33 174 490 780 1181 7023
First Conn Lake 1755 1537 1358 900 521 222 106 164 381 719 1056 1544 10263
Franklin Falls Dam 1494 1266 1057 681 343 80 13 57 232 564 861 1308 7956
Grafton 1507 1280 1094 711 366 115 33 76 269 595 897 1333 8276
Greenland 1296 1100 939 624 325 78 14 43 177 477 753 1147 6973
Hanover 1463 1226 1023 633 289 54 10 24 176 530 849 1296 7573
Keene 1364 1145 952 576 251 44 0 20 148 471 777 1200 6948
Lancaster 1587 1350 1135 723 362 110 33 82 264 598 936 1404 8584
Lebanon 1491 1257 1048 660 321 73 16 47 206 543 855 1308 7825
Massabesic Lake 1376 1165 973 612 290 55 6 29 160 481 768 1200 7115
Monroe 5 NNE 1609 1380 1159 726 362 91 24 64 232 577 912 1395 8531
Mount Sunapee 1398 1201 1035 672 318 85 21 51 209 518 846 1259 7613
Nashua 2 NNW 1352 1162 967 609 283 62 7 25 162 493 798 1190 7110
North Conway 1488 1271 1073 693 338 82 22 69 239 580 885 1318 8058
North Stratford 1634 1445 1212 777 395 120 40 95 271 639 990 1438 9056
Peterboro 2 S 1367 1179 1008 648 329 93 25 49 216 524 822 1231 7491
Pinkham Notch 1575 1372 1225 837 474 197 85 148 363 685 993 1417 9371
Plymouth 1525 1308 1110 717 381 121 32 80 285 608 912 1352 8431
Surry Mountain Lake 1479 1263 1054 669 337 90 13 53 228 564 843 1293 7886
Tamworth 3 1541 1310 1113 729 406 132 42 102 306 639 912 1361 8593
Source: NOAA/NCDC publication Climatography of the U.S. #81

To find similar data for your area, go to NOAA's  National Climatic Data Center

 

Actual Heating Degree Days Recorded for Waldoboro, Maine 04572

Historical Average based on the average of observations 1961-1990
Source: NOAA/NCDC publication Climatography of the U.S. #81

Heating Degree Days
(base 65 f )
  Jan   Feb   Mar   Apr   May   Jun  Jul     Aug    Sep    Oct   Nov    Dec Annual

For Waldoboro, Maine

Historical Average Monthly 1361 1164 988 648 363 101 15 40 188 510 786 1189 7353
Historical Average Running Total 1361 2525 3513 4161 4524 4625 4640 4680 4868 5378 6164 7353 7353
2009 Monthly Totals 1518 1129 1024 546 305 189 119 87 286 628 712 1143 7686
2009 Running Totals 1518 2647 3671 4217 4522 4711 4830 4917 5203 5831 6543 7686 7686
2010 Monthly Totals 1255 982                      
2010 Running Totals 1255 2237                      

 


2008 Min - Max - Averages
Yearly rundown


 


2009 Min - Max - Averages
Yearly rundown

 

Click Here for the current year Min - Max Rundowns computed to date  YTD Rundowns

Cooling Degree Day

Interpreting the graphs is the same as  Heating Degree Days.

The question most people have is why is  65 def f taken as the reference above which cooling is required ?  Most people feel a bit chilly  when the living space temperature  dips to 65 def f....   A clue as to the reason  lies in the actual living space temperature, and not the outside ambient temperature...   In most building envelopes, when the outside temp is 65, the actual living space temperature is often 75...   Many reasons for this but the most common are that appliances, lighting and even people themselves give off heat; enough in most cases to raise the internal living space temperature by at least 10 deg f, at which point, things start to feel uncomfortable. That is the reason why 65 deg f has been the agreed on cooling reference.

Wind Gust Strip Chart and Average Wind Speed Chart

 

 

There is some confusion as to what the wind gust strip recorder chart actually represents.

To the left are both the wind gust strip recorder chart and the averaged wind speed as captured 3-28-2008.  (Note: The wind gust chart spans the past 72 hours and the average wind speed chart spans only the last 90 minutes or so.)

At first glance, it would appear that looking at the wind gust chart, the current average for the past 90 minutes should be about 8 or 9 mph, and that at no time does it appear to drop below 8 mph.   Yet the wind speed average chart just below it, clearly shows only a 5 mph average wind speed.   How could this be ???

The confusion comes about as to what data makes up the wind gust strip chart and thus what the chart represents.

Each sample on the wind gust chart, represents not the instantaneous wind speed at any  particular moment, but rather ONLY the highest wind speed as sampled in the past 10 minutes. Thus it is only a strip chart of the max wind speeds detected over any 10 minute period.

By comparison, the average wind speed is the average of each and every instantaneous wind speed and then averaged also over a 10 minute period. This plot takes in to account all recorded wind speeds - even periods where the winds may have been dead calm.

* * * * * * *

To drive home the point even further, consider the following hypothetical scenario where the wind speed is sampled once each second. Over a 10 minute period (600 seconds), we will assume the wind remained dead calm for 9 minutes and 59 seconds and then gusted to 9 mph for just 1 second.

The wind gust strip chart would Only have plotted a value of 9 mph, since it only records the highest wind gust in any 10 minute period.

In contrast, the average wind speed would be only .015 mph   (The average being the sum of all elements (sampled wind speeds) divided by the total number of elements (samples). = S1 to S600 / # of total samples  = 9/600 = .015 mph) ...   A rather large difference between the two in the values to be plotted, but it highlights the differences in how the same data is presented in different ways.

... or for those that appreciate the simple elegance of calculus, then the average value of f between the limits a to b, is the integral
where A=Sample Start Point, B=Sample End 

Now you know !

 

Time Left til the arrival of the Spring Equinox: March 20, 2010 1:32 PM EST  17:32 UTC

(The Seasons countdown timer uses JavaScript to perform the calculations.  Users running Internet Explorer, must allow Active-X controls to allow Java to run, which is safe to allow anywhere on this site)

 

Temperature Conversions:  Fahrenheit - Centigrade - Celsius - Kelvin - Réaumur - Rankine

Values on initial page load are set to the freezing point of water. To find others, enter a known value
in any  field, then left click outside the text box or press "Tab" to calculate for the other unknowns.


Fahrenheit:  F  
Celsius:
        C 
Kelvin:         K  
Rankine:
    Ra
Réaumur:   Re

 

Wind Chill Calculator

Enter a temperature and wind speed to be calculated
What the temperature feels like to your body:
Fahrenheit Celsius   °F
mph knots m/s k/h   °C

 Enter a temp =<40 F and a wind speed =/> 3mph, 2.6 kts, 1.35 m/sec or 4.83 Km/hr

  Watts per Meter ²
             

Find the formula used by clicking HERE     (will open in a new window and take you to NOAA)

Note: Wind speed calculations below 3mph are meaningless, since there is not enough wind force to significantly disturb  the air boundary layer.
Outside ambient temps above 40f rarely account for significant wind chills, and are thus not calculated

Fahrenheit  

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736):  the German physicist who invented the alcohol thermometer in 1709, and the mercury thermometer in 1714. In 1724, he introduced the temperature scale that bears his name.

The freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (written "32 °F"), whereas the boiling point is defined as 212 degrees. - How the seemingly arbitrary zero point was determined, is still open to debate.  

Used primarily in the US.

Celsius and Centigrade:

The Celsius scale, invented by Swedish Astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744),  is also referred to as the Centigrade scale. Centigrade means "consisting of or divided into 100".

Celsius (Centigrade) takes it's zero reference as being the freezing point of water, whereas 100 deg C  is set at the boiling point of water.  This equates to a temperature span of 1 deg C  & K,  as being precisely 1 part in 273.15 parts the difference between absolute zero and 0 deg C - or the freezing point of water at 1 atmosphere pressure.

More conducive to the metric system, degrees Celsius is more widely adopted in European countries, Canada and in engineering.

Kelvin

Lord William Thomson Kelvin expanded on the earlier work of Celsius and introduced the Kelvin Scale in 1848. The Kelvin Scale measures the ultimate extremes of hot and cold. -

Degrees Kelvin is the often preferred scientific notation of measuring temperature.    A temperature differential of one degree Kelvin is the same temperature differential as one degree Celsius . The only difference between Celsius and Kelvin being that Kelvin uses 0 degrees to define Absolute Zero, which is -273.15°C.  (thus 273.15K = 0°C).

Degrees Kelvin is used almost strictly in engineering.

Rankine °R (or °Ra). 

William John Macquorn Rankine  (1820-1872) was a Scottish engineer, known for his Rankine temperature scale & putting forth a thermodynamic theory stating the Law of Conservation of Energy (1853).

As with the Kelvin scale (symbol: K), zero on the Rankine scale is absolute zero, but the Rankine degree is defined as equal to one degree Fahrenheit, rather than the one degree Celsius as used by the Kelvin scale. Thus a temperature of -459.67 °F is precisely equal to 0 °R.   

Degrees Rankine is used primarily in engineering.

Réaumur

The Réaumur scale (°Ré) is a temperature scale named after René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, who first proposed it in 1731.

The freezing point of water is 0 degrees Réaumur, while the boiling point of water is defined as 80 degrees Réaumur. Exactly how René arrived at 80 as being the boiling point of water, is open to some conjecture. It's is hypothesized that it was chosen since the number 80 could be halved 4 times and still be an integer (40, 20, 10, 5 making scales easier to read). By contrast, the number 100, could only be halved twice and still remain an integer (50, 25).  The other  is that the volume of displacement for each degree in his thermometer was to represent 1/1,000th the volume of the bulb. Using that metric, water boiled at  80 °Ré.    Whatever his logic, the scale is no longer used, except in the traditional making of some Italian Cheeses.

 

Note:  The abnormal monthly rainfall for November, 2007 is the result of re-calibrating the rainfall rate to reflect the correct yearly total.
Total annual 2008 Rainfall reset to zero 1-1-2008    -   2007 Total Rainfall was 51.31 inches

For even more info and this stations' historical data:    Historical Data

  Forecast for Waldoboro at Weather Underground:          Forecast     

You will be then be leaving Video Interchange and be directed to The Weather Underground ® that records & charts our historical data.
(Click "Back" or "Return" on your browser to return to this page)

* Cloud Base Measurements  

We're often asked: How exactly do we determine the cloud base ?     (height of the lowest part of the cloud (cloud base) compensated for Mean Sea Level).

In days of old, cloud base was often determined by stereoscopic instruments that used simple range finding techniques often performed by a technician, or in other cases, reported via more direct means such as live pilot reports, known as Pireps...   Though reasonably accurate during daytime hours with adequate light, night-time data was most accurately derived from  pireps  at most major airports. In other words: cloud base (especially in reduced visibility)  was often determined when the approaching aircraft finally "broke out" of the slop on an ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach to reveal either the "Rabbit" (sequenced strobes leading the approaching aircraft on final, to the runway threshold) or the runway marker lights themselves. Later optical rangefinder based systems were partially automated, but accuracy left something to be desired and cloud base data was available normally only at the major airports or Govt weather sites.

Today, such cloud base measurements have been replaced with LIDAR  (LIght Detection And Ranging) that emits a pulsed laser beam, and measures the time it takes for any reflection from the cloud base to be returned.  Perhaps a bit over-simplified (ok... way over-simplified), but nothing more than an over glorified laser pointer/cat laser toy,  but aimed vertically.  Only real difference is that the laser is pulsed & the ceilometer microcode simply measures the time it takes for any reflection off the cloud base to be returned.  Conceptually, the same as radar, but instead, uses light in the form of a pulsed laser, instead of microwaves.    Since the speed of light in our atmosphere is known to a great deal of precision, the time it takes for any reflection from the cloud base to be reflected back & reach the sensor, equates to a highly accurate measurement.  Cloud base measurements are now automatically determined, often accurate to within  +/- 14 feet, & up to a height of 60,0000 feet and available 24/7.  (the CL3  is only capable of up to 25,000 ft)....  Since the base of many cloud types are not well defined, the software averages the past 20 samples to calculate the height of the lowest cloud layer. LIDAR technology makes accurate cloud/ceiling measurements, affordable even to the private /personal weather stations...  The pulsed beam instead of being visible, operates at a wavelength of 910nm which is solidly into the the infrared  - just outside the visible spectrum of from 380 to 750nm. The long wavelength, also is much better able to penetrate and negate the effects of haze.     Thus there is no visible laser beam to draw attention or aggravate our neighbors !   (though much more powerful than a tv remote, it's visibly as innocuous as the laser "beam" emitted by  your TV remote control )...

A visibility measuring device was also considered for this station, however the WebCam image would seem to more than suffice for practical purposes ! 



 

Season Dates and Times

Year

Spring (EDT) - Vernal Equinox Summer Solstice (EDT) Fall - Autumnal Equinox (EDT) Winter Solstice (EDT)
2008 MAR 20  148 AM EDT - 0548 UTC JUN 20  759 PM EDT - 2359 UTC SEP 22  1144 AM EDT - 1544 UTC DEC 21   704 AM EST - 1204 UTC
2009 MAR 20  744 AM EDT - 1144 UTC JUN 21   145 AM EDT - 0545 UTC SEP 22   518 PM EDT - 2118 UTC DEC 21  1247 PM EST - 1747 UTC
2010 MAR 20   132 PM EDT - 1732 UTC JUN 21   728 AM EDT - 1128 UTC SEP 22  1109 PM EDT - 0309 UTC 9-23  DEC 21   638 PM EST - 2338 UTC
2011 MAR 20   721 PM EDT - 2321 UTC JUN 211  116 PM EDT - 1716 UTC SEP 23   504 AM EDT - 0904 UTC DEC 22  1230 AM EST - 0530 UTC
2012* MAR 20   114 AM EDT - 0514 UTC JUN 20   709 PM EDT - 2309 UTC SEP 22  1049 AM EDT - 1449 UTC DEC 21   611 AM EST - 1111 UTC
2013 MAR 20   702 AM EDT - 1102 UTC  JUN 21   104 AM EDT - 0504 UTC SEP 22   444 PM EDT - 2044 UTC DEC 21  1211 PM EST - 1711 UTC
2014 MAR 20  1257 PM EDT - 1657 UTC JUN 21   651 AM EDT - 1051 UTC SEP 22  1029 PM EDT - 0229 UTC 9-23 DEC 21   603 PM EST - 2303 UTC
2015 MAR 20   645 PM EDT - 2245 UTC JUN 21  1238 PM EDT - 1638 UTC SEP 23 2 420 AM EDT - 0820 UTC DEC 21  1148 PM EST - 0438 UTC 12-22
2016 MAR 20  1230 AM EDT - 0430 UTC JUN 20   634 PM EDT - 2234 UTC SEP 22  1021 AM EDT - 1421 UTC DEC 21   544 AM EST - 1044 UTC
2017 MAR 20   628 AM EDT - 1028 UTC JUN 21  1224 AM EDT - 0424 UTC SEP 22   402 PM EDT - 2002 UTC DEC 21  1128 AM EST - 1628 UTC
2018 MAR 20  1215 PM EDT - 1615 UTC JUN 21   607 AM EDT - 1007 UTC SEP 22   954 PM EDT - 0154 UTC9- 23 DEC 218  522 PM EST - 2222 UTC
2019 MAR 20   558 PM EDT - 2158 UTC JUN 21 1154 AM EDT - 1554 UTC SEP 23   350 AM EDT - 0750 UTC DEC 21  1119 PM EST - 0419 UTC 12-22
2020 MAR 19  1149 PM EDT - 0349 UTC 3-20 JUN 20   543 PM EDT - 2143 UTC  SEP 22   930 AM EDT - 1330 UTC DEC 21   502 AM EST - 1002 UTC

* After more than 5000 years since the start of the last Great Cycle Aug 11, 3114 BC, the Mayan Calendar ends Dec 12, 2012 11:11 am UTC,  after which the rest of the data in the table may be meaningless !
(Thought that might cheer everyone up !)

To view  today's date using the Mayan Calendar depicting it as Mayan Glyphs, refer to  this link:  http://www.pagetworld.co.uk/mayan.php

Other interesting reading re: the Mayan Calendar  http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm

 

Sunrise Sunset Length of Day, Solar Noon, Inclination, and Distance Tables
for Waldoboro, ME 2009-2010

 

2009 2009
2010 2010

For a Dept of the Navy - Observatory Excel XLS file colon delineated for time version,  CLICK HERE

 

Current Severe Weather Warnings and Advisories - (polled for updates every 10 minutes)  Server - 2
 

No Warnings

Current 7 Day Forecast:  (polled for updates every 2 hrs)

Converted from "mez026.txt" on 10-Mar-2010 by AscToHTM 5.0
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Zone Forecasts For New Hampshire And Western Maine
National Weather Service Gray Me
309 Pm Est Wed Mar 10 2010

Mez020>022. 025>028. 111015.
Androscoggin. Kennebec. Interior Waldo. Sagadahoc. Lincoln. Knox.
Coastal Waldo.
Including The Cities Of Lewiston. Auburn Livermore Falls
Augusta Waterville Winterport Unity Bath Topsham
Boothbay Harbor Wiscasset Waldoboro Camden Rockland
Thomaston Belfast Lincolnville
309 Pm Est Wed Mar 10 2010

TONIGHT: Mostly Clear This Evening Then Becoming Partly Cloudy.
Lows In The Mid 20s. Light And Variable Winds.

THURSDAY: Mostly Sunny. Highs In The Mid 40s. Light And Variable
Winds.

THURSDAY NIGHT: Mostly Cloudy. Lows Around 30. Light And Variable
Winds.

FRIDAY: Mostly Cloudy In The Morning Then Becoming Partly Sunny.
Highs In The Upper 40s. Light And Variable Winds.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Partly Cloudy. Lows Around 30. Light And Variable
Winds.

SATURDAY: Mostly Cloudy. Highs In The Upper 40s.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Cloudy With A 50 Percent Chance Of Rain. Lows In
The Mid 30s.

SUNDAY: Mostly Cloudy With A 50 Percent Chance Of Rain. Highs In
The Upper 40s.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Becoming Mostly Clear. A Chance Of Rain Or Sleet
Early. Lows In The Upper 30s. Chance Of Precipitation 30 Percent.

MONDAY: And Monday Night Mostly Clear. Highs In The Upper 40s.
Lows In The Upper 20s.

TUESDAY: And Tuesday Night Clear. Highs In The Mid 40s. Lows In
The Upper 20s.

WEDNESDAY: Sunny. Highs In The Mid 40s.
$$



Last Modified:  Map 1, 2010

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