Separate Vantage Pro anemometer

I noticed a used Davis Vantage Pro 2 sensor array on ebay and since it only made £50 decided to get it to play around with.
It did not have a receiving console but my Vantage Vue console can receive the VP2 signal as they are all interchangeable.

It was not guaranteed working as the seller had no way to test it, so it was not unduly disappointing that the temperature sensor seemed to have failed.(It's £135 to get a replacement!)
However I was already aware the anemometer with wireless transmitter can be used as a way to improve accuracy with the all-in-one Vue unit which compromises wind measurements to some extent by being (usually) installed rather lower than is ideal.

So with a little playing around the Vue console is now receiving rain and temperature/humidity from the Vue unit on channel 1 and the wind direction/speed is on channel 2 from a separate VP2 unit.
The VP2 wind cups are set up significantly higher than the Vue and further away from trees which tend to shelter it especially from the north.

A further improvement would be to lower the Vue sensors to near the standard four feet for temperature recording.
This will also hopefully improve rain accuracy in windy conditions.
It's a known issue that an elevated rain collecting bucket will catch proportionately less of the rain falling as the wind increases.
Something to get around to on a day when it isn't cold and windy, as fiddling with tiny U-bolt nuts while up a ladder is not a good idea in such weather!

Here's a picture of all the VP2 sensors and transmitter.
The rain bucket is surprisingly large and is working but I'm not using it for now.
The solar powered transmitter has now been detached from the main assembly, and only has the anemometer cable running into it.

Satellite cloud - Europe

From the excellent Norwegian site www.yr.no

First bit of snow

It would not be unusual to see something like this in October, but here we are 4th December and this is the first few flakes seen - a few sleety showers and over the tops wet snow and a light covering.

Temperature touched 5.2C this morning but fell away through the afternoon with a frost looking very likely this evening.

By contrast this shot was taken on 2nd of December 2010 when we had about 18 inches of snow and many more snowy days followed through December.