The indestructible Samsung NC10

The weather station netbook started missing uploads this morning which suggested it needed a reboot - it was last restarted in July and had logged well over 8 million bits of data since then.

All seemed well after reboot and some kind of forced Windows 7 update.
It did all take most of half an hour though!
It runs a disk monitoring software which should send an email if it's in trouble.
It also counts the hours it has been running and it's on 46,896 - about five years.

Having highlighted this I expect something will happen to it soon!
I have another old PC on W7 can step in at a moments notice, and it does daily backups online and to a memory stick so won't be a disaster - but could take a day or two to get everything up and running.

Trouble is after a lot of tinkering with the weather-display software during the first year or so I've  hardly touched it for years and it would require a bit of re-learning to set up on another PC.
Most of the settings can be transferred from the backup, I did actually move it to that PC then back again when the NC10 was updated from XP to W7.

When on XP it seemed to gradually choke up and slow down much quicker - and needed a reboot about once a month.
W7 must be much better at managing that side but still succumbs eventually.

Dry and wet

Unlike some parts of the country the summer has been relatively dry here.

Building on a dry winter and spring the moisture deficit has remained significant with many weaker springs and small streams not running properly for several weeks.
At the start of September the annual total was more than 250mm below average, which should be around 600mm at this stage.

Suddenly on 15th September there's been a rather freakish deluge with more than 40mm in a few hours during the morning. It's still ongoing as I write so will go higher!
Easily the wettest day of the year so far.
It has been very localised with an area of  heavy rain rotating almost directly over the moors since midnight.

With another wet spell expected in a couple of days it does feel like this month might be the change in the dry spell of below average months, which has persisted almost a year now.

September is one of the drier months here, with an average of 61mm.
It seems almost certain this will be easily passed shortly, however the second half of the month looks more settled again.

Eclipse graph

At about 09:35 we had a partial solar eclipse with a little over 90% of the disc covered.
The remaining crescent was very slim indeed and the sunlight became almost like very bright moonlight.
It felt cool and the wind seemed to be increasing - though it was picking up anyway so probably not an effect.

It was 8.8C at about 8:30, by 9:50 it had dropped back to 8.1C so not that big a fall - however it would have been at least 1C higher without the dimming I expect.

Webcam back to normal position

The webcam had to be relocated in early January, due to scaffolding obscuring the view - plus dirt and debris on the glass due to work to replace the roof.
This has taken longer than expected mainly due to wind and snowy conditions, however all is completed today - and camera is back looking roughly south towards Esklets and Stony Ridge.

In some ways the image was much better when the camera pointed NE - as window reflections and sun glare were almost eliminated - but the view over a barn roof and empty field was uninspiring!
Both problems are less serious as the sun climbs higher.

http://weather.westerdale.info/cam/

Webcam position

Unfortunately this needs to be changed to a side window for a while due to building work on the roof (scaffolding in the way)
It is likely to take at least two weeks even if the weather does not cause delays.
http://weather.westerdale.info/cam/

Daytime Fars fitted to VP2

I ordered this from Scaled Instruments formerly Archer Trading in Florida.

That was on 21st August and it finally arrived this morning - 10th September.

USPS took nine days just to take it the 343 miles from Jacksonville to Miami, then the customs clearance here was almost as slow.

I followed it easily on the USPS and Parcelforce online tracking, and it arrived in good condition.

Buying from the US worked out about £25 cheaper than UK sellers after VAT was paid.

The concept is that in some conditions the temperature inside the white louvred sensor housing can get too high - in particular days with little wind and early/late in the day there is some evidence it can read as much as 3C too high.

This would rarely affect the day's maximum, but it's nice to have more accuracy if possible.

The kit includes the revised upside down mount for the sensor.

This keeps it drier and might prolong its life (quite an expensive one to replace).

Fitting it was mostly common sense - but rather fiddly and the instructions were somewhat unclear about some details.

After doing the first one while referring to the instructions, a second one it would be 30 minutes work! It took almost an hour from taking the ISS down to up and running again.
By that time the sun had set so it wasn't running, but I did test it earlier.
It is practically silent so will be hard to know if it is working or not!

The main difference visually is that it comes with a new front panel with dual solar cells - which appear identical.
You re-use all the original plastic parts and most of the screws and bolts.

Update 11th September.
The fan could be heard humming quietly and with light winds it was surprising how much air you can feel being blown out of the screen above the thermometer sensor,

I thought I'd put the standby Vantage Vue up alongside the VP2 this afternoon.

It was warm and sunny with light easterly winds under 4mph.

At about 5pm the Vue read 0.9C higher than the VP2.

Soon after sunset the difference was more like 0.3C

It's hard to say how much of this discrepancy is relates to the FARS and how much the larger VP2 enclosure.

The significant thing is that the difference changes as the sun warmth hitting the side of the shield varies.

I'll leave both up for another day or so and see how they change in different conditions.
Unfortunately since I only have one data logger I can't do a comparative graph easily.

hay making weather

The best hay day so far - only everyone has already managed to finish despite some frustrating damp and foggy mornings!