It’s Alive!

  

This is a Fisher Porter Weighing Precipitation Gauge. From the serial number I think it was manufactured in 1967. 

One of my stations this year is due for an upgrade but recently (and just a few months before we install the shiny new up to date system) the existing precipitation gauge started acting funny. This data is super important to several people: weather nerds (obviously), farmers, the municipality, the fire ban people, etc.

So yesterday my manager helped me dust off and resurect an old one from The Warehouse of Sensors Time Forgot and today I put it in service. 

It was really neat to play with the old tech. It’s robust(ish) and it works. 

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We Built Another Weather StationĀ 

The old Edmonton Municipal Airport is about to become the Blatchford neighbourhood. I don’t really know too many details about that. One side effect of this change was that the old aviation weather system had its power and phone cut off, apparently there’s going to be a lake there. 

So, at the beginning of May, we went and temporarily stuck one of our climate stations on the old spot. It runs on solar power and has a cellular modem but it measures slightly different things than the airport system did. 

While the temporary set up chugged away we set up for and built the shiny new Edmonton Blatchford weather station. It has all the same sensors as the temporary one but it’s a permanent(ish) set-up and can stay until the city wants the land. The installation took place this week. 

Trenching and cables:

   
 

Backfilled:

  

Setting up bases for the sensors:

   

This one will be a snow depth sensor when it’s done.

  This is as much of the main panel as I could do inside.

Getting there: 

Wired up:

  
Main Panel  
all set. It’s still solar power and cellular modem but it’s capable of being switched to line power quite easily. 

  
Finished! It was even transmitting hourly weather data when we left. 

I am currently a delightful shade of what may be described as broiled lobster (yes, through SPF60) and remembering that I’m not 20 and haven’t done any physical labour since before Andy arrived.  

It was a good week.. now to tear down all the old stuff.. 

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In Progress

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The Geonor 1/2 built and the Stevenson Screen waiting to be started

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Geonor

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My job was to install the all weather precipitation gauge. I did it all by myself except the parts I had help with.

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Ranfurley

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Wednesday I went along to help install the sensors which will make up the new weather station in Ranfurley where we laid the cable last week. There is a bit more to do but we made a lot of progress. This is what it looked like when I left.

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After

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During

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Back to Work

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Last week saw my return to work. After a couple of days of arguing with HR and IT I got my computer and admin (mostly) sorted out so Friday I got to go help lay the cable for a new station in Ranfurley (near Vegreville). One nice thing about working close to civilization is that we hired a backhoe. There was no digging, there was no backfilling. The operator made trenching an art form. Here’s the before pic.

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Our Officially Healthy Baby

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Lessons from Andy

Whoever said they sleep 17 to 20 hours a day was lying, so was whoever said newborn poo doesn’t smell.

My baby makes all kinds of sound effects including growls, squeaks and spaceship crashes. I hope mine isn’t the only one that growls, what is Kody teaching him??

He prefers to poop into a clean diaper.

He can poop, pee and spit up at the same time, usually when the diaper is off. On a related note, he can generate a full load of laundry in a morning.

He’s not supposed to be able to roll over, lift his head or scoot forward yet but he can and will do so the instant you’re not paying full attention.

A sleeping baby will instantly awaken at the sound of the shower being turned on or a cup of coffee being poured.

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