Sunday, April 27, 2008

Clearing skies reveal storm snow tracks

Satellite images today clearly reveal the snow tracks left from two late season winter storms that have affected southern MB over the past couple of days. The first track of snow extends from the Pilot Mound area through Portage to Gimli left over from Thursday's storm (April 24th). 10-20 cm of snow fell in this swath, with Winnipeg lying just on the eastern edge of the heavier snowband. Winnipeg saw a mix of snow and ice with this system with mainly rain or freezing rain further east. The second track of snow is over southeast MB just east of Winnipeg. This is snow left over from Saturday's storm (April 26) which dumped 15-25 cm across southeast MB closer to the Ontario border. This same storm system dropped record breaking snowfalls of 30-50 cm from northeastern SD into northern MN and NW Ontario. Quite the stormy finish to April!

5 comments:

  1. Hi Rob,

    I have some more questions about personal weather stations. I have been doing some research on various weather stations, and have narrowed down the choices to two:

    1. The Honeywell TE923W
    2. Obviously the Davis Pro2

    I will add some additional details about the Honeywell station in case you haven't heard of it before.

    Wind speed accuracy/Direction : 2mph/11 degrees
    Rainfall: 5%/±0.6875 mm
    Temperature: +/- 1C
    Humidity: 5%

    Advantages I found:

    Comes with USB cable and software to hook up to computer/website (no additional fee, unlike Davis). Same software you use for your website. Price is about half the Davis at $199 to $299 ($199 is the current on-sale price). Comes with UV meter, not an additional sensor like the Davis is. Accuracy is the same as Davis except temperature, where it is 1C, yours is 0.6C, according to Davis.

    Disadvantages:

    I don't know anything about it, don't know of any in use. Temperature is slightly less accurate that Davis. No radiation shield. Looks to be slightly more difficult to set-up. Weather records aren't kept as extensively.

    What do you think of this Honeywell system? It appears to be basically the same accuracy as the Davis system for the most part, but at a fraction of the price? Where did you order your station?

    Thank-you

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  2. Scott..

    I'm not familiar with the Honeywell unit so I can't say whether it's a good station or not. A search of customer reviews on the Honeywell would likely yield some good background info. Personally, I always recommend the Davis Vantage Pro if people ask.. costs a little more, but accuracy and dependability can't be beat. If cost is an issue and you can live with a little less accuracy, I'm sure the Honeywell unit would do the job.

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  4. I have looked at customer review as you recommended, unfortunately they aren't very good. Issues with reliability and accuracy come up often, and apparently the software is horrible.

    I definately think I will go with the Davis unit if I choose to purchase one. My last question is where did you buy yours from? Do you know of any places in Canada to buy it?

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  5. I ordered mine from Ambient Weather.. a discount wholesaler in Arizona. They can give you a substantial discount over buying direct from Davis, and offer attractive software bundle packages as well. You can also try your luck on ebay if that's an option. Ambient also offers many other weather station models from other manufacturers that may suit your budget better.

    BTW, I just saw some specs on the Honeywell, and it requires 12 AA batteries to power all the sensors. Ouch. The Davis is solar powered, and only requires one 3V battery for backup. Big advantage there.

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