On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 19:59:56 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:
On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 7:27:43 PM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 14:44:15 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
My favorite was the US Federal Weather station that was
placed directly in the exhaust of a building air conditioner.
Ummm... like this wx station mounted on top of the HVAC units?
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/crud/KSBW-WX-Station.jpg
It's the weather station for the Santa Cruz sales office for KSBW. I'm
told it isn't used for forecasting or data collection.
All of your local NOAA stations are up in the mountains -- Ben Lomond,
above Los Gatos, La Honda.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/findstation
-- Jay Beattie.
Yep. I've been a weather nut for probably 30+ years. Here's my web
page for the local weather links.
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/slv-wx-fire/SLV%20Weather%20Links.htm
Also, a page on fire related sites that needs lots of reformatting:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/slv-wx-fire/SLV%20Fire%20Links.htm
Both are somewhat out of date because both NOAA and USGS are
reorganizing their web piles. Real-soon-now.
The main weather station is at the CYA camp on top of Ben Lomond
mountain.
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/sites/site.php?station=BNDC1&network=CA_DCP
Looks like they finally posted my photos. Cool.
It's a fairly typical RAWS type station. Circa 2013:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/slv-wx-fire/BDC-Weather-Station-01.jpg
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/slv-wx-fire/BDC-Weather-Station-02.jpg
At this time, it's overgrown with brush, weeds, and ticks. The nearby
power station have grown fairly close, creating some heating issues
when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. At 2600ft elevation,
it gets about twice as much rain as in the nearby valley. It's
probably the best functioning wx station in the area.
I don't have time to write a complete report on the condition of the
local weather stations. In general, they're awful. The station at
the Ben Lomond recycling station is under a tree. The station at
DelaVega Park is in a golf course, which regularly gets watered. Two
others appear on the maps, but do not exist. The air quality monitor
in Santa Cruz is located upwind, at the bottom of 3 sided valley, near
a freeway, which is guaranteed to concentrate CO2, NO, etc readings.
Then, there are the crowd sources weather stations, such Weather
Underground, CWOP, etc.
http://www.wundermap.com
These get their data from home weather stations, which are notoriously
and chronically badly sitted. CWOP tries to help by flagging stations
that produce bad data, but at the present rate of home stations on the
internet, the task is hopeless. This is what a properly sitted home
weather stations might look like. See Pg 7:
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/CWOP-Siting.pdf
However, it doesn't matter. AGW and climate change research do NOT
use weather station data, unless the researcher is a masochist.
Weather data is short term and intended to help predict the weather a
few days ahead. Climate is all about predicting what will happen
years and centuries ahead. While weather and climate have much in
common, the data collection methods are very different. For example,
weather stations can move around quite a bit without causing much of a
panic, while stations dedicated to climate change need to be
permanently located in an area where encroachment is unlikely. For
example, the USCRN is one such network:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/
For the previous 20 years, I helped maintain several mountain top
weather stations, mostly at radio sites. It was an unprofitable giant
pain in the posterior, but I certainly learned quite a bit about
weather stations, sensors, data collection, tweaking data, and
administrative politics. Thanksfully, I no longer do this.
I can go on forever on the topic, but I'm busy right now and need to
do something else. Later...
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558