Why does the wind speed show Zero when I know the wind is blowing?

This is most likely due to the anemometer freezing.  Freezing rain can sometimes cause a freeze-up of the anemometer.  The wind direction vane might also freeze at the same time.  This problem fixes itself in one of three ways:

1. When the temperature warms up.
2. When the sun comes out and warms the black plastic anemometer.
3. When a strong gust of wind hits the anemometer, it can break it free from the ice.

How often is the website updated?

New weather information is uploaded to the web site every 10 minutes.

Why is the website not up to date?

Well, this does not happen often, but here are the causes:

1.                  If our connection to the internet is down.

2.                  If we are having computer problems or are doing maintenance on the computer.

3.                  If someone (me) accidentally closes the upload program.

If you notice the website is not up to date, please send me an email.

Why are the windspeed gages all blue?

This is a bug in the software.  It happens when the windspeed is very low, but not zero.  We have to wait for Davis Instruments to fix this.  It is temporary and only occurs rarely.

Why does the windspeed seem different from my house which is in the same city?

Good question.  First of all, windspeeds near the ground vary widely due to obstacles that can slow the wind, and topography like hills that can speed it up.  Secondly, if a 100 kph gust hits our wind instruments, and you live 10 km away, it will take 6 minutes for the same gust to hit your house, if you are in direct line with the gust and our location.  By the time the gust hits you, it may have slowed down or speeded up, but it is unlikely to match what you see on the website.  Also don’t forget that the information on the website, could be up to 10 minutes old, so you can’t match it gust for gust anyway.  Thirdly, the windspeed indicator takes an instantaneous reading only, so if at the time of reading the wind was in between gusts then the reading will be on the low side.  The peak gust for the day will be given in the lower half of the windspeed indicator, displayed in digits, right after the word “HIGH”.  Your best piece of information regarding what the wind is doing is to look at the average wind speed indicator.  This indicator displays the average of all readings it takes within a 10 minute interval.  Since it records the speed every 2.5 seconds, you get a pretty accurate picture of what the wind is doing.

Why does the website indicate it is raining on a sunny day?

This happens after a snowstorm.  The snow fills the rain gage, and later when the sun comes out it melts the snow, which then drips down into the measuring device, which records the amount and announces it as “rainfall”.

What is the difference between “TODAY’S RAIN” and “STORM TOTAL”?

Today’s Rain simply reports how many millimeters of rain has fallen since midnight.  This number will always be set to zero just before midnight.

Storm Total refers to a storm that could span several days.  A storm start is defined by any two rain readings from the rain gage within a short period of time.  It takes 24 hours without any rain to end the storm event.