High Winds on Friday

Brent Dowell

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Reno NV
Just thought this was interesting. The weather station I have behind my house recorded some pretty high winds yesterday. At times, the wind display would just say 'HH.H', which meant they were too high to register. I did record a couple of gusts around 125mph at around noon yesterday.

I actually recorded a time lapse video yesterday, because I was kind of expecting something interesting. Just didn't expect the wind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrMkVW61XU
 
wow that was neat brent:) i can see that you get it all when it comes you dont have anything between you and the weather.. just a few bushes... if it got cold over there you would be fridgid..
 
Calls up childhood memories of life on the farm in Idaho... I don't think I've ever seen 125mph winds, though, except through the windshield of my car. :)

Ah, those were the days. :) :) :)
 
I have a hard time believing the readings myself, but they were just primarily gusts. The anenometer is on a hill, so maybe there's some acceleration that happens when the wind hits the hill :dunno: Still it was windy. Went out in it and I did have to lean in to the wind in order to move.
 
Boy, I guess you'd lean! A gust that high would batter ya around quite a bit. I know the wind resistance at 90mph lifts me off the seat of a motorbike (I'm lightweight)... and because of my crazy younger life I know that 70mph generates just enough wind resistance to push me up the windshield of a Ford Fairlane from a sitting position on the hood, with wipers as the only handholds...

Geez, I did THAT? THAT is freakin' NUTS! :D
 
Cool video. :thumb: I heard mention on the radio yesterday about the high winds in northern NV, and I was suspecting you'd be getting some of it.
 
Very neat Brent. Boy those were some winds what a cool video spill the beans on how you did that ie what camera and software. Now that i have a mast up at the back of my shop i would like to add that feature to look at capturing snow and other events. Just not certain what camera to use. There are so many to choose from but I really would like a PTZ so i can also use it to Terrorise the NN.:rofl:

Hey that wind reminded me of a few different things.

Back in my military days I was in an electronic warefare station out in the bush spying on other African countries. Well we used these masts called Clark masts. You pump up each section of aluminum tube with a compressor and then lock the collar at each stage before proceeding to the next. Then you tie thick guy ropes from a few of the collars down to a steel rod 3/4 inch thick attached to a steel plate about 18 to 24 inches square and you bury the plate at least i would say 4 ft in the ground. Quiet a job to set up camp if you doing it as we were for a permament base.

Anyhow one day we are due to get new higher masts and just as the semi trailer pulls into camp a storm hit with winds higher than what you just experienced.

It took the masts and lifted them and their steel plates out off the ground and flew them through the air as if a giant was weeding the garden after a good rain storm. :)

Good part for us was we did not have the job of taking them down. It also lifted and snapped (just like matches being snapped between your fingers)huge paw paw trees that had been growing in the bush for many years.

Its amazing how quick a storm like that passes.:)
 
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Thanks Guys!

Really neat time lapse!! Thanks for sharing! What camera did you use?Paul

Very neat Brent. Boy those were some winds what a cool video spill the beans on how you did that ie what camera and software.

Well, It's a basic little ip camera
aic250.jpg
http://www.airlink101.com/products/aic250.php. It's not wireless and I've had it on my desk snapping pictures out the window for my weather site. For Friday however, I put it on a step stool on the front porch connected to a little wireless access point so I could get it off of my desk.

My weathersite ( http://www.palominovalleyweather.com ) software is pretty much all home grown using perl scripts. This camera can be accessed like a webserver to grab an image, so I just had my perl script add the date and time to each picture I grabbed off the camera. After all the pictures were taken I used some program called 'mencoder' to put them all together. I've got a little linux box dedicated to my weatherstation, and mencode is a little linux utility.

The camera quality isn't that great, but it's easy to interface with and use.

We still haven't sold our old house in California, and I've got a little PTZ camera mounted in a window down there. It's not outside rated, but it's pretty cool. I can login to it over the internet and keep an eye on the old neighborhood, make sure the sprinklers work, the lawn is mowed, nobody is running around inside... IT's the http://www.airlink101.com/products/aicn747w.php. I had got it on sale at Fry's for pretty cheap. I think you can find them on the internet for around 140$. Again, the camera quality isn't that great, but it's pretty easy to use and work with.

I'm working to mount my fixed camera up on the roof, but I'm going to need to make a little enclosure with a window. Right now it's just spring clamped to the step stool with ziplock bag for protection from the elements :D
 
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