 |
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
  |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
Introducing: Vantage Vue!
(Cue drum roll) Big Voice Announcer: Introducing... (Cue trumpets) Weather World: (sound of breath being held) Big Voice Announcer: Davis's Newest Weather Station... Weather World: (absolute silence, a pin drops) Big Voice Announcer: Vantage Vue! (Cue choir) Weather World: (Wild cheering! Champagne corks flying!) That's how we feel around here! If you've noticed the e-news has been a little quiet lately, it's because we've been very busy getting our new weather station, the Vantage Vue ready to ship. Vantage Vue is the result of years of effort on the part of our design team and meteorologist. While we and our customers have been very happy with the fully-featured, professionally oriented Vantage Pro2, we understood that there were some users who would like a weather station that is more competitively priced, had fewer features but was not less accurate or durable. (Being who we are, we could NEVER scrimp on quality or accuracy.) Our new station had to be as tough, and as accurate as its big brother, Vantage Pro2. So here it is: the sleek, easy-to-install, all-in-one Vantage Vue. It has the same radio as Vantage Pro2, making it not only compatible with Vantage Pro2 but also with the same amazing transmission distance. The updates are just as fast, too. At just $395, we expect to see Vantage Vue popping up in many back yards, businesses, and rooftops. The Vantage Vue ISS is an integrated design, with the wind cups and vane, rain collector, and temperature and humidity sensors all in one sleek, compact unit. Set up is a breeze – just attach the wind cups and vane, pop in the tipping spoon mechanism and battery, and you're ready to install it outside where the wildest of your weather happens. And the nifty little Vantage Vue console is really a treat! Backlit and easy to read, the console offers tons of data, graphs and alarms. It also has the innovative Weather Center which presents even more information on each weather variable. Raised, glow-in-the-dark buttons make it easy to use at night. Since Vantage Vue and Vantage Pro2 use the same frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum radio, you can mix and match the components. If you already have a Vantage Pro2, you can add a Vantage Vue console ($195) for use in another room. If you already have a Vantage Pro2 Plus, your Vantage Vue console will display the solar data, including UV, solar radiation, and ET. Vantage Vue works with WeatherLink, Weather Envoy, and our repeaters too! As you can see, we are pretty impressed with ourselves about Vantage Vue. But since we know lots of you are happy Vantage Pro2 owners, we have to say that Vantage Pro2 is still our "flagship" weather station, and we expect that for professional weather watchers and enthusiasts, it will remain the station of choice. With Vantage Pro2, the serious weather watcher can add stations and external sensors, such as UV and solar radiation sensors, leaf and soil moisture/temperature stations, and additional temperature/humidity stations. The ability to mount the anemometer separately, either with the 40' cable or with a wireless anemometer transmitter kit, will also please the pros. If you need a cabled station, Cabled Vantage Pro2 is the choice for you. We know this "new baby" of ours will fit right in around here. Do you have weather? Do you have an iPhone? Then you MUST download our new application, Davis WeatherLink Mobile. It links your iPhone to the thousands of weather stations on our WeatherLinkIP network and those on the NOAA network. The app starts up with the Davis headquarters station already reporting data, but you can add any others you like. Just type in a location and choose a station! You get all the data the station is reporting, even soil moisture and solar data. You can see how the weather is at your mountain cabin, or your mother-in-law's seaside condo in Florida, or your brother's ranch in Victoria, Australia. Now you can always know how things are in "Weather Central" (Norman, Oklahoma) or Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. How fun is that? This very cool project was brought to us through the creative effort of our summer intern, Justin, a student at the University of California at Davis' Electrical Engineering Department. Justin hadn't been much of a "weather nut" before this summer, but he'll head back for his junior year at UC Davis as a full-fledged member of our elite club. The app is FREE. Download it (NOW) and write us a review (when you are done playing World Weather Watcher)! Vantage Pro2 Goes to the Air Show Jo Hunter is an airplane buff, and all airplane buffs are, by definition, weather buffs! Luckily for us, she is also a talented photographer. She took these photos when she was at AirVenture, the world's biggest aviation convention, in Oskosh, Wisconsin. The event is put on by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) each year. "This year saw the display of the Airbus A380 and Scaled Composites' White Knight 2," Jo wrote, "amongst many other attractions, which drew crowds of over 560,000 people during the week-long event." She sent us this photo of "what I saw on the flight line, right next to the main runway."
"And how about this one, with White Knight 2 landing over the top of your Vantage Pro2?"
(Makes us want to yell, "Duck!!") Very, extremely cool, Jo! Thanks! >> Back to Menu
Vantage Pro2, World Traveler, Stop One: Colombia
The Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Independent University of the West, or "Cali West") located in the city of Cali, Colombia, has had their Vantage Pro2 Plus for over a year. While the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is using it in their ongoing research projects on alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, the whole campus community enjoys the data it provides!
If you read Español, you can check out this report from the Ministry of National Education acknowledging the work of the University and the Vantage Pro2. Or if your Spanish is not that good, you can just enjoy these photo of the Vantage Pro2 (and Carlos) watching over the beautiful campus at Cali West. >> Back to Menu Vantage Pro2, World Traveler, Stop Two: Jamaica
Donald Chin, a technician working with the Jamaica Meteorological Service wrote to tell us that the JMS maintains 28 manually operated weather stations and another 278 rainfall stations. But over the last few years, they've had some problems with missed observations and some doubtful readings. To solve the problems, they wisely decided to set up three Vantage Pro2 stations to collect the most critical data along the eastern side of the island, where hurricanes are most likely to hit. These three stations will be a sort of test for a future of all automatic stations. >> Back to Menu Vantage Pro2, World Traveler, Stop Three: El Salvador Engineer Rutilio Antonio Parada Galan wrote (in Spanish!) to thank us for the three Vantage Pro2 stations used by the Center for Disaster Protection in El Salvador. The stations monitor intense rainfall in the cities of Berlin, Alegria, and Metapán. The stations will be used as part of their flood warning system. Muchas gracias, Señor Galan! >> Back to Menu Seeing the Wind at Exploratorium The Exploratorium, a fantastic hands-on science education museum in San Francisco has neatly melded two Davis product lines: weather and marine. In an outdoor display, a whole gang of our Spar-Fly sailboat wind indicators have been mounted on a flagpole at Fort Mason. Their intricate dance "illustrates how the laminar flow of wind changes with height." And it is very pretty! You can see it by clicking here. (We also couldn't resist clicking on their aerial web cam, too. With the gulls calling and the blue skies, it's a treat to pan the camera around San Francisco and the Bay.) >> Back to Menu
What Happens When You Lift Warm, Moist Air Over a Mountain? Weather watchers know that the thing that stays the same about weather is the fact that it changes all time! But there are some places in the world where it is just cloudy all the time and a rainless day is the odd one. The northwest coasts of the United States and Canada come to mind, as does the east coast of Australia, and the Andes. What these places have in common is the perfect combination of weather for the formation of orographic clouds. Orographic clouds form when moist air masses are lifted from a low elevation to a high one. A mountain range that faces a steady, moisture-laden wind is the perfect place for an orographic cloud to from. As the warmer moist air blows in, it is forced up over the terrain where it cools. (This is called adiabatic cooling; the dry adiabatic rate is about 10°C per 1000 meters, 5.5° F per 1000 feet.) Cooling causes the relative humidity to rise, leading to clouds and precipitation. Some recurrent orographic clouds have become almost like part of the landscape. The Table Mountain near Cape Town in South Africa is almost always draped with the famed "table cloth" of orographic clouds. And we might not even recognize Mt. Everest and the Matterhorn without their famous banner clouds. Banner clouds are a type of orographic clouds that form in the lee of sharp mountains. The Rock of Gibraltar, standing in the path of easterly winds, called Levanter winds, that blow through the Strait of Gibraltar, usually waves a dramatic mile-long banner cloud from May to October. (Here's a pretty picture of the Rock at Weather Online, and check out this gorgeous shot on Sierra Photography of a banner cloud on Half Dome in Yosemite.) If you are into clouds and mountains, and of course you are, you can even book tours of famous cloudy mountains in China. Isn't it wonderful that there is a weather phenomenon so predictable and beautiful people book tours a year in advance to see it? That's what we love about the weather: predictability can be exactly the opposite of dull! >> Back to Menu
We know you put that manual that came with your new weather station in a very safe place. It's right, um, well, uh... Ha! We know how you are: just like us! That's why we have always put our manuals online. Anytime you need a reference, just click over to our web site's Support section where you'll find all the manuals you could want! Unless you put your computer somewhere safe and just can't remember where it is. Then you're on your own. >> Back to Menu
Farm Livin' Is the Life for This Vantage Pro2
Thomas Clegg, who lives on a farm in Phelps, New York, liked the pretty nighttime photo in our last issue and thought he'd add one of his Vantage Pro2 at sunset. Thomas reports his weather data to both CWOP and Weather Underground. >> Back to Menu
While we're on the subject of pretty pictures here's an "awww!" one for you from Gary R., of Olympia, Washington who says his anemometer does "double duty, measuring wind speed/direction, and enhancing wildlife habitat." >> Back to Menu
How to Install a Vantage Pro2 Anemometer
Bruce Potts just installed his new Vantage Pro2 in his yard in Toms River, New Jersey. He mounted the anemometer atop two 10-foot PVC poles, but kept the rain collector at the perfect 6' height. Excellent installation, Bruce. >> Back to Menu He Still Doesn't Know How High Up He Is Jack Baker found our ideas for getting elevation in last issue a bit frustrating, especially when he tried to use EarthTools.org. He felt that EarthTools might be inaccurate and found that Topozone.com was a bit easier to use. However, he pointed out that Topozone, which is now part of trails.com is not a free service, but you can get a 14-day free trial. Thanks, Jack. We should have added that after you use the web or a USGS topo map to find the base elevation of your house, you need to add an additional correction based on where you mount your weather station console. If your house has a few feet of basement or other offset from the "ground" level to the bottom of the first floor, you'll need to add that. And then, consoles are usually mounted or used at least a few feet above the floor level (on a desk, table, or on the wall), some may even be installed on the second or higher floor of your house. It's important to know that you may not be able to get a completely accurate elevation unless you get your house surveyed. The base line elevation will be a smoothed average based on aerial photograph of the surrounding region and may not take into account details about how your home site was graded before your house was constructed. You may have to settle for "close enough." Paul Polak had something to add to the elevation conversation as well. "Since GPS units are becoming more common, it is a good tool to use to get your Vantage Pro2's elevation regardless of where you're located." Good idea, Paul. In general, GPS has a higher degree of position accuracy than elevation accuracy, but you should check the documentation of your GPS device. Use GPS to verify the base line elevation outside the house (where there is a clear view of the sky where the GPS satellites are). >> Back to Menu What do you think of the E-Newsletter?How can we improve? How do you use your Davis weather products? Email us at news@davisnet.com. Question 1: True or False: Air is a fluid. True. Gases are fluids - they flow, deform under stress or to the outline of a container. In fact, it is a pretty high pressure fluid we swim around in all day. Now if we were swimming in actual water, like at about 10 meters underwater, the pressure would be double. (That's a lot. Eardrums can rupture at just three meters.) >> Back to Menu Question 2: What is laminar flow? When a fluid, such as air (See Weather Quiz Question 1!) flows smoothly in parallel layers without disruption between the layers. Its opposite is turbulent flow. It is an important factor in flight - the smooth flow of air over the wing causes lift, turbulent flow causes drag and reduces lift. While we are not sure how this video on YouTube from the Physics Department at the University of New Mexico applies to the laminar flow of wind, it is just too amazing to pass up! >> Back to Menu Question 3: What is a "hole punch" cloud? A cloud with a hole punched right through it. Our friend Jan Null, of Golden Gate Weather wrote a nice, succinct article on the phenomenon of "hole punch clouds" for the San Francisco Examiner with a pretty photo too. He explains that they are caused when an airplane flies through "a layer of high clouds that have precisely the right temperature and moisture." When all the specific conditions are met, you end up with a nice clean blank spot in a layer of cloud. >> Back to Menu Question 4: True or False: The center of the universe is located in Hayward, California, United States of America. False! It used to be that when customers outside the United States opened their new Vantage Pro2 they found the console proudly displaying Fahrenheit temperatures, mile-per-hour wind, and rain in inches. That's no longer true. Now EU and UK units of both Vantage Pro2 and Vantage Vue are shipped with the console already set up to read in metric units and Celsius temperatures. >> Back to Menu Question 5: How did we come to such conclusions about his gender and thought processes? According to All About Birds, male Allen's hummingbirds are known for setting up a "territory overseeing open areas of coastal scrub vegetation or riparian shrubs, where he often perches conspicuously on exposed leafless branches areas and forests." This one must think he hit the jackpot of leafless branches. >> Back to Menu Davis! What do you think of our new E-news format? Please continue to send your comments, weather URL's, and story suggestions to news@davisnet.com. We look forward to getting your comments and any responses you have to the Davis E-News. Member participation is what keeps the Davis E-News alive and kicking. Well, that's it for this edition. You'll be hearing from us again next month! The Davis Weather Club E-Newsletter is published by Davis Instruments. Vantage Vue, Vantage Pro2, Vantage Pro2 Plus, Vantage Pro, Vantage Pro Plus, Weather Monitor, Weather Wizard, WeatherLink, WeatherLinkIP, Weather Envoy, and Perception are trademarks of Davis Instruments Corp. |
||||||||||||
News Flash!
