Dead Soldier

Day 68: In the hopes that only a leaf caught in the orifice was preventing rainfall from registering in my Davis weather station, I carefully lowered the four-year old instrument to the ground. Nope, nothing obvious, so I took the next and somewhat major step of dismounting it from the pipe which served as its tower so that I could test it indoors. I thought running water through it might clear out any blockage which was not visible, but even that didn't work. My weather station is down for the count. I doubt I'll replace it with a new unit. For the time, I'll only be recording rainfall as measured in a plastic gauge, and will have to pick up a high-low thermometer. I'll need help putting this unit back up to record wind speed since that is something I don't want to try alone.

Cats N Dogs

Day 22: As yet, I have not determined what parameters inspire my Davis weather station to offer up this particular observation, but I believe it has something to do with conditions over the past 15 minutes. In any case, since midnight (10 hours), I have recorded 1.52" of rain. If you were to walk down my driveway, you'd have to avoid numerous poodles to get to the mailbox. Otherwise known as a "Pineapple Express," the Pacific Northwe't is currently at the bottom of an atmospheric river. Flood watches are in effect (not "flood warnings," not yet, because the runoff hasn't reached the river channels), particularly in southwest Washington. Because we received so little precip during the summer (in a 5 1/2-month period, my gauge only registered 0.11", mostly as fog/dew), the ground is exceedingly dry. As the top layer becomes saturated and heavy, the possibility of landslips increases dramatically. Fortunately, I am situated where neither flood or landslide is likely to have a direct effect, at least as far as potential property damage goes. However, I may find myself cut off from the rest of the world, either physically or virtually or both, by road closures, power outages or other secondary events. Something tells me we're in for a long winter.

Easter Eggs In November

Day 23: When it's raining buckets, when it's pouring down a real gully-washer and the skies are so dark it looks like midnight at noon, the folks at Davis Instruments have come up with a cure for SAD: easter eggs in their weather displays. This isn't the first time I have seen "Its raining cats n dogs." After all, I do live in the Pacific Northwest, but apparently that particular phrase is reserved for times when the rainfall exceeds a certain rate per minute, as it was yesterday when we were having a right frog-strangler, and it always makes me laugh. I suspect there are other little gems which I haven't encountered, e.g., those which might appear in tornado country or a hurricane-prone region, but thank you, I'll leave those for someone else to discover. However, it was only a day or two ago that I spotted the announcement of a meteor shower (a rather unhelpful mention given the circumstances of a surfeit of precipitation), and was rather surprised that I hadn't noticed this type of information for any previous astronomical event. What else have you built in, Davis? If it goes below zero, are you going to tell me it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey? I need to pay closer attention to this instrument.

Weather Humour

Day 246: I don't stand staring at the monitor for my weather station. I check it every day, record the highs, lows, precipitation and peak wind speed, and make appropriate notes on a paper graph of any significant event such as hail or a thundershower. I've been following this same routine for almost 50 years now using a succession of stations. Until yesterday, none had made me laugh out loud.

Yesterday morning was cloudy, giving way around noon to some sun. It was a pleasant day until late afternoon when in the span of a brief fifteen minutes, the skies turned dark and threatening. The beginnings of a squall shook the leaves of the Japanese maple, set the Mountain-ash to trembling. The Grosbeaks beat for cover, as if they could anticipate what would next occur. Suddenly, a torrent spilled from the grey overhead, so violent that after two or three minutes, my curiosity kicked in. I stood up from working on a jigsaw puzzle and stepped over to the weather station, observing that in those few moments, almost a quarter of an inch of rain had fallen. As I started to move away, the display changed to read, "Its raining cats n dogs." Even as I did a comedic double-take, it switched back to its customary verbiage. The downpour was beginning to abate, but continued until the display had cycled through "cats n dogs" a few more times, long enough for me to grab the camera to record the delightful weather "Easter egg" Davis had included in their software. I'm just surprised I hadn't seen it before in the year and a half I've owned this particular model.