A new problem! The weather PC locked up at 20:30 last night. Just spotted, reboot in progress...
Webcam update. The new webcam failed to cope with daylight, so I am using a Philips one for now. Although this one tries too hard to compensate at night, which results in very large file sizes. The compromise is to stop night time images being uploaded.
Well I'm sat here furiously typing away as I've got to get the summer school assessment (see previous news) sent in well before the deadline. Baby number 2 has entered the 'window', where it can arrive at any time. Just as my 2.5yr old is getting over chickenpox. Not exactly weather related is it? But a calm drive to the Royal Berks is awaiting....
To the 'pilots' out there who may have noticed the odd psychodelic skycam image over the last few days. This is due to the camera slowly dying. (And the better camera is off line due to BT Broadband and please don't ask about BT as I might scream!<g>)
I am just about to purchase another webcam (anything but answer question 5 which is asking me to produce a scientific report on gamma rays and the Compton effect, although I have completed the experiment and managed to find out the mass of an electron - it's tiny! (and I didn't get the 1927 Nobel prize...)), that should hopefully cure this failing camera, also provide twice the resolution (4x the size of download I presume), and still be of sufficiently 'low' quality that direct sunshine at this time of day doesn't flood the detector causing the complete image to appear white. Well that's the plan.
So this intermittent problem will hopefully be fixed with an improved image in the near future. Unless the stork appears before the courier when you will have to wait!
In the meantime, the Kite Festival is making a return to Henwick Worthy (it's opposite), Thatcham this coming weekend, so look out for them on the skycam. Beer and ice cream, mmmm. Let's hope the baby appears when I am ready :-)
There was a power cut between 04:32 and 05:55, so the station is missing data. This also explains why the charts looks a bit 'funny' for today.
BT is still dropping the connection. Sometimes it is up for days, then drops 20 times in half an hour which causes the various connections (6 of them) to the web to get confused and generally stop uploading. Fingers crossed the connection stays stable as the website will be running itself the whole of next week. Not a holiday, just a physics summer school in Durham. I'll monitor it from there and get the odd reboot done, but will only confuse those left at home if the whole site needs shutting down and restarting in order!
Various records were broken during the heatwave this month. Of the 4 years of continuous data I have, it may surprise to you to know that in the year to date, 2006 is the wettest year on record!
Although everything appears to be working as I type, I do realise there have been a few problems over the past month or so. All of the problems have been outside of my control, but to makes matters worse I've been working away from home during the week and therefore unable to correct any problem until the weekend(s).
The hosting provider Ecenica seems to be behaving.
BT Broadband has been upgraded to the 'up to 8Mb' service, although it now regularly loses the connection and is the cause of the webcams getting confused and refusing to upload.
123-reg.co.uk which forwards thatcham-weather.info to the webpages is now stable.
And I've only had a couple of power cuts!
Having had a very wet May (2nd wettest month since I started the station in 2002), June may well be the driest month in my records - Watch the Extreme page. So the hosepipe ban continues...
www.123-reg.co.uk have screwed up again. I've sent e-mails to support, but as it is the weekend...
It's not just this site that has a problem, I've 10 other domains registered with them that are also failing to forward to the website content. Other users will have similar problems. Not much else I can say or do.
If you access via www.thatcham-weather.info you may not be able to find the weather due to 123-reg.co.uk screwing up.
From their website, "In line with our commitment to providing the best possible service ... blah de blah ... we are currently experiencing intermittent problems with web forwarding services ... blah de blah ... 123-reg apologises for any inconvenience caused." Wonderful!
There is a way to get around this, but you will need to be here already to find the way around it. Catch22.
For the future, also bookmark http://weather.kennetsignalling.com/home.html as it gets around 123-reg and their improvements on behalf of their customers. Or use Google and search for Thatcham Weather...
Therefore I apologise for any inconvenience caused, blah de blah :-)
And this evening, the second thunderstorm in 48 hours. Some interesting stuff to write to COL at the end of May for my monthly report. During the storm 2 days ago I only heard one clap of thunder at precisely 07:08, but it burnt down a house less than a mile away!
I realise a lot of visitors use this site to plan weather related activities. As your fun tends to take place away from a PC, you might want to be able to access current weather during the day. Therefore I've created a simple webpage for you.
From your WAP/web enabled mobile phone visit http://weather.kennetsignalling.com/wap/wx.wml for the latest weather in Thatcham. The page is approximately 1kb in size (very small). The only people to profit from this is yourself and your mobile phone operater. I do not and have no intention of profiting from any service I provide. As usual, any comments/wishes to me via the Contact page.
On Wednesday (26th) there were a couple of power cuts that stopped the data recording/transmitting from 08:10 until 11:00. As I was working 200 miles north, I managed to get the PC's rebooted remotely, but it meant only the small skycam was working for the past few days. All sorted now I am back at home.
10Apr 00:35-06:55, BT Broadband failed which stopped data reaching the website. All data recorded locally though.
Software upgraded to v12.08p4. Although I hate upgrading the software as the faults it has allegedly fixed usually rarely affect me, the bugs introduced may well do so. But I upgraded earlier today as this morning and once more this year I've had the software crash [Has to be something to do with an upgrade I didn't need]. (For the record, it was due to ntdll.dll)
I've also been playing with the colours again.
The station has signed up with Citizen Weather Observer Programme (CWOP). More details to follow
I was either brave, silly or drunk when I upgraded the weather station software today. This was allow the station to participate in Weather Underground's 'Rapid Fire' test. Data is now sent every few seconds, so the weather appears 'live'. Rapid Fire is still in development, but you can see it in action here
(One week on and the software upgrade appears to be without problem, but I'm still wary.)
Yesterday the grass temperature locked up at 2.2'C for around 24 hours - batteries changed and thermometer reset.
The website, weather station and weather PC has generally been behaving themselves, so I've had no need to write any news.
BT Broadband failed on the 30th January between 03:40 and 10:30. This stopped the site updating.
The web hosting company (Ecencia) had a rather large server failure on the 17th January from 18:20 until 19:50, but couldn't say what had caused it, but were proud to admit they had two 'senior' engineers on site looking at the problem that couldn't be found. This caused the website to disappear during that period.
I've replaced the hopeless max/min thermometer from the UK Weathershop with a cheap max/min from the local garden centre. This one works, although under-reads slightly. But knowing how far out it is means it is still useful as a manual backup instrument. The Stevensons screen is working very well.
January's weather was different. Since the station has been operating, the mean temperature was the coolest on record, the mean barometer the highest on record with the highest January maximum. Winds have been the calmest, including the lowest January maximum with the dominant wind direction being the NE. (It is usually WSW.) It's also been the driest January. (All of this is interesting in a Steve Davis kind of way.)
Happy New Year
The outdoor thermometer/ humidity sensor is now housed in a Stevensons screen. This was constructed from a kit I purchased from the UK Weathershop. Very fiddly to glue and paint, but the end result looks good. The thermometer and transmitter unit has also been replaced with the brand new spare I already had.
In the same screen is an additional pair of thermometers. A traditional max/min to back up the electronic version, although as I type the max and min indicators follow the mercury column which is of course useless! The other thermometer has a 3m long lead with a sensor at the end. This has been placed at grass height and will be used to record minimum grass temperatures.
I've just added a webcam animation to the webcam menu. It's still be tested.
Thanks to Mark at http://www.cliftonweather.co.uk for explaining how he implemented this on his own site.
On a positive note, the hosting has been stable since the big hiccup at their end.
A brand new website is being created in the background with over half of it already successfully working. The new site has no frames, which will enable all users (you) to see more of the site without too much scrolling. The web pages are also smaller in size, so should download faster. Colours are also reversed as the blue is easier on the eyes.
If you notice any strange pages on the web site over the next week, please be aware I'll be in the background going bananas. HTML/CSS/Javascript, all new to me, but all in the new site. I'll be sat here altering the webpages that update every 10 minutes, then checking, testing, recording results, without breaking the exisiting site (too much). Hopefully it with be worth it for both me and the many users out there that visit and I've no idea who you are. Well apart from knowing the URL of say Freemans Catalogues visits quite often. Hello.
At the same time, I recorded 1041mb today which is the joint highest record and suspect it may break this stations record by Monday night. Another record was broken yesterday - Wind Run.
During November I joined the Climatological Observers Link (COL). Each month my data will be analysed and sent to the group to be published.
BT admit the problem seems to be 'their end', so it's either been fixed or still intermittent.
This is out of my control, but I'll apologise anyway...
I've modified the rain gauge so it now records in 0.5mm increments compared to the OS design of 1.0mm. This appears to be successful comparing readings to two manual gauges in the garden. (Currently it is calibrated to 0.48mm per tip of the bucket.)
The weather station has also been behaving itself. I've even reinstalled the operating system and software on the dedicated weather PC.
A brand new weather station has just been ordered from Skyview as the main 928 unit has decided to start failing.
You may have noticed the barometer dropped by 10 hPa at midnight. This will report incorrectly until the new base station is installed on the 14th.
At least I'll have a 'big' box of spares!
Battery pack cleaned, but swapped with the outdoor temperature pack as this is easier to get to. Also new AA's fitted.
Currently air is calm, but anemometer has but spun manually and registers, so awaiting wind to test. (Update, had to go out on roof and 'fiddle'.)
This is currently a test page where 'news/updates' will be added as required. So the first news is this new page!
I am also adding a RECORDS page where I'll put the highs and lows for the station in one place. It will NOT be updated every 10 minutes, but when I have time.
Although I've been meaning to do this for sometime, thank Andy B. from Hungerford for the kick I needed.
I would also like to thank Ryan Trendell of Oregon Scientific UK that helped me out in June with a new rain gauge to replace one the squirrels had eaten.
So a very delayed thank you due to not having webpage editing software installed.
I have also been 'brave' and updated from VWS software from v12.07p25 to p52. (If it ain't broke etc.)
Well this only cost me half a day to sort something that wasn't broken. Next update can wait until 2007-ish.