Look, Up in the Sky...

It's not a bird, it's not a plane, It's super weather!

It's our new weather station, an AcuRite (http://acurite.com) 5-in-1Weather Station. It tracks and records the current wind direction (including previous two wind directions), wind speed, peak wind speed (gusts), indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, rainfall totals (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and all-time), 12- to 24-hour forecast, barometric pressure, storm alerts based on it barometric readings, a weather ticker, heat index, and other information.

External Battery Pack

Since the new station is now ten-feet above the roof, a nice feature was to get an external battery pack that I mounted on a convenient nearby wall. This saves me having to climb a ladder to change batteries. Which, I shouldn't have to do all that often as the batteries are simply a back-up to the solar cells that power the unit itself.

The New Station

Here, you can see the station, way up in the air. It's advantageous to have it elevated because that keeps it from being affected by reflected heat from the roof, wind shadowing from nearby trees and structures, etc.

Station Detail

A close up of the clean design. But, all is not perfect. The equipment is first-rate. It was easy to assemble and was very easy to connect it to my router and the intertubes. However, the company is squirrelly in one other important way.

For whatever reason, they only recognize addresses from the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. If you live anywhere else, the date on the AcuRite web servers will be skewed.
Let me explain. My billing address, since I used a US credit card to purchase the station, is in Olympia, WA, USA. Their software takes that address as the 'working' address and location of the station. It will not let you change it to wherever you actually live. So, my station's data is for Belize but appears as being from Olympia. Why? Who knows? Customers have been complaining about this for almost a year on their company blog, to no effect.

Although you shouldn't have to put up with this ridiculous defect in their software, there is an easy way around the problem. That's to ignore any weather pumped out from AcuRite's servers. Simply register your station with WeatherUnderground (http://www.wunderground.com). You can also register your station with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (https://www.weather.gov/lkn/volunteering.html).

The weather from Winjama Weather will also eventually go to Belize Hydromet (http://www.hydromet.gov.bz) and be part of the data they use for local forecasting and reporting.

Other than that non-sensical problem with AcuRite's website software, the equipment works well, and Winjama Weather is 'on-the-air' 24/7 and provides accurate, and up-to-the-minute weather for south Corozal Bay.

You can track the local weather from our blog, or you can download a 'sticker' as Wunderground calls them and simply plug Winjama's Wunderground identifier (icorozal3) into it, and keep track of Winjama weather that way.

If it's not Super Weather you're after, maybe it's Super Kitties!

I missed getting my camera in time to capture Noel and April, both on the roof, thinking they were too cool for words, finding this new area to play in.

Noel and the New Playground

That was actually a couple of days ago. I captured these images of Noel yesterday. And, this morning, as Dianna and I were enjoying our morning coffee on the veranda, Dianna looked up and, sure enough, there was Noel, exploring the heights once again.

Noel Testing the Net

Here she is, testing the net to make sure it will support her weight. I suspect that eventually, the kitties will be all over the roof area over the pool.

Sure-Footed

Being the smart kittie that she is, Noel is taking no chances by staying over the beams as she traverses the span of the roof.

It's Possessed

There's no other way to describe it. My weather station is possessed.

Pictured below is the unit which lives on the roof of our pool house. I have no other way to describe what has happened to it. For those of you who have noticed, and for those even fewer of you who've voiced - well, written, comments to me concerning the rather cold temperatures the thing has been registering for the past two or more months, you may have noticed that sometime during the night last night, it suddenly came to life, registering more or less correct local temperature readings. It still isn't worth a shilling as far as rainfall amounts.

Demons Inhabit The Thing

 Speaking of rainfall, maybe that's what shocked it back to life. The extreme amount of rain we received yesterday might have caused the little demons to seek shelter inside it and that sparked it back into some sort of functioning existence.

I replaced the regular AA-sized batteries in the receiving unit that is connected to my laptop. That had no noticeable effect whatsoever. I did that over a month ago. My next thought was to replace the three rechargeable AA-sized batteries in the roof-top sending unit. That was going to wait till I could make a trip to Brodie's in Belize City. I still plan on doing that. Just so you don't get the idea that I'd head all the way down to BC just for three small batteries, I have a shopping list that's been being compiled by Dianna and myself for about as long as the weather station has been inoperable. Hmmm, I wonder. Is there a connection? Naah, that would be too far-fetched. Infested with demons makes much more sense.

Just so you know, I did contact the unit's manufacturer about the problem, to no avail. They said the problem was something not even related to what I was asking about. Sort of like when you ask a question at work to the IT wizards about your work computer and you get an answer clearly showing they weren't even listening to you in the first place.

Anyway, enjoy the new year and the seemingly new life my weather station is experiencing. Just don't be surprised if it starts asking to see Father Damien or wants to eat split pea soup.

On second thought, maybe an exorcism is what's needed... or new batteries.

Dang Technology

My weather station is infected with gremlins. For a while now, I've been trying to keep it on the straight and narrow - that is, providing good, reliable information.

Unfortunately, it seems to have other ideas. For example, the two items in particular that are being extremely obstinate are monthly total for rainfall and yesterday's high winds.

Rainfall for the month is listed as 198.35-inches. I know we get some rain here and, it is the rainy season... But, come on, sixteen and a half feet of rain? I don't think so.

And the high winds, yesterday's at 70.9 KTS (knots) or 81.59 MPH? or the wind of a couple of days ago 97 KTS or 111.63 MPH? I really don't think so.

So, I hope you'll bear with me. I am trying to track down the problem and correct it. I've been going through the data files the program creates, but apparently I have yet to fix the right file. I don't have a clue why these errors are appearing. They're not consistent - except in the tally.

For now, if a reading seems a bit weird, look at the readings on either side of it and if it seems like a spike, that might be what it is. Especially, if we've gotten nothing in the way of warnings, etc., from the National Hurricane Center, or Belize Weather Service.

I'll keep whacking away at the problem. Sooner or later I'll find the solution and get it fixed.

Keep your weather eye peeled.

Weather Web's Tentacles

Ever since my weather station went live (http://winjama.blogspot.com/2010/10/oldfartitis-moves-in-for-kill.html), I've always wondered how to connect with the Belize National Meteorological Service (http://www.hydromet.gov.bz/), so that some of the weather information my station works so hard to produce can be put to good use.

For a couple of days, I looked at their website and didn't see any way to let them know I had a station and was willing to share information. Finally, I thought, "Hmmm, why don't I write them and see if there's a way to share the data with them?" So, I did.

I emailed Mr Dennis Gonguez, Chief Meteorologist, and asked him that very question. I also gave him the technical information for my station, so they could find it's information on the Internet, and asked if they had plans in the future to utilize stations such as mine.

After wishing him good luck with the current hurricane season, I hit the send button.

I was pleasantly surprised when, the very next day, I got an answer from Mr. Gonguez thanking me for the information on my station. He told me they would use the data from it to supplement their other observations.

He also asked if I knew how to contact the other weather station up in Consejo Shores.

Finally, Mr. Gonguez provided a link for several other weather stations around Belize.

• Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico
• Grand Caribe in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye
• Ladyville, BWB, Belize
• WishWilly, Calabash Bight, Roatan Island

Mr. Gonguez asked if I could give him an email address for the station in Consejo Shores. After a bit of Internet sleuthing, I was able to send him an email address for that station.

Apparently, they do fold in the data from all these stations into the weather product they produce for the whole country.

So, along with the Consejo Shores station and Winjama Weather Station... well, the coverage isn't fantastic, as far as amateur stations go, but it's far better than nothing.

Hey, it's nice to know that we're doing our bit to help with hurricane preparedness in Belize.

You can see the current and historical information for Winjama Weather by clicking on the Weather Underground link on the right column of this page. Enjoy.

Getchur Weather Right Here

Winjama Weather. Right here in Corozal, Belize (NOTE: This is a followup to my original weather post of a few days ago.). Get accurate weather conditions from right here in Corozal (actually, from right on top of my guesthouse), instead of  from the Chetumal Airport or from Goldson International Airport in Belize City. Here's some links where you can find my station's weather reported (Or, you can just click on the Winjama Weather link in the right column and bypass all this):

http://www.pwsweather.com/obs/WINJAMAWX.html

Personal Weather Stations (PWS) - Current Corozal weather (WINJAMAWX is my station's identifier on pwsweather.com). PWS has a nice and easy to understand layout. PWSweather.com is a partnership between HAMweather, LLC and weatherforyou.com, LLC. The purpose is to bring together data from personal weather stations worldwide and display it so that it can be easily accessed by anyone on the Internet.

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=ICOROZAL3

Weather Underground - You'll find current Corozal weather (ICOROZAL3 is my station's identifier on Weather Underground). Weather Underground delivers free, reliable, real-time and accurate online weather information worldwide to millions of Web users.

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?DW6180 - Current Corozal weather from Winjama Station (my station).

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=DW6180 - Google Earth Winjama station's location

findU is a database archiving weather data which comes from an Internet-based system called the Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP). CWOP collects weather data and in turn, makes it available for anyone. There are over 8,000 registered CWOP members world-wide. CWOP members send their weather data by internet to findU where it is then sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who then distributes the data to over 500 organizations, such as:

• National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices
• National Transportation Safety Board
• NASA - Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and many others

http://weatherforyou.com/personal_weather_stations/maps/international.php

Weatherforyou.com - If you click on the station located over Belize, you should get brief local Corozal weather from my station, WINJAMAWX.

Thousands of Personal Weather Stations fill the gaps between professional government and commercial weather stations. Weatherforyou.com provides weather information, much of which cannot be found elsewhere, and all without distracting pop-up or animated advertising.

It might sound like a lot of work on my part. All I do is sit and watch the little whirly-gig whiz around. Everything else is done by the computer. Actually, I spent some amount of time getting the station set up and figuring out through the, at times, obtuse instructions from the various sites, how to send Winjama weather to each location. Once that was done, barring accidents, it's just sit back, have a cool one, and observe. Hmmm, I wonder. Is that why they call them weather observers?