Redundancy and flying ice

2006-12-11 07:24:30.000 – Neil Lareau,  Observer

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Snowing and in the fog this morning as a cold front pushes south through the region.

The wind has been somewhat relentless this week. It has only topped 100 mph once, but it has yet to lull to a comfortable level.

Yesterday provided a lot of sun; sun that helped to loose many pieces of rime into the wind. Walking out the precipitation can I had to dodge fist size pieces propelled by the wind from 1/16 of a mile away and 200ft up on the WPKQ radio tower. Their irregular surfaces made their motion through the air hard to predict; picture a football bouncing on the ground.

Redundancy can be exciting, sometimes that is. Yesterday we got a new differential pressure measurement device online and in parallel with another much older but fundamentally similar device. Differential pressure is actually how we measure high wind speed here on the summit. By measuring the pressure exerted by a wind gust and referencing this pressure against the ambient atmospheric pressure we are able to accurately determine wind speed. This new device is exciting mostly in that it perfectly agrees with the old unit. That and it is about 1/8 the size and easily calibrated. Jake Odell, our database programmer did some great work to get the device interfaced with the rest of our network.

Tomorrow looks like its going to be nice, finally providing a break from the wind.

Neil Lareau,  Observer