Sep 16
2007
Weather Station Open and Ready for Business
Fourteen AA batteries and two AAA batteries later, the new Honeywell Professional Weather Station (Model TE923W) is now operational.
I can now tell you that the current temperature outdoors is 63 degrees and the humidity is 51%. Here in my office, it’s a comfortable 70 degrees with 45% humidity. The air is still (no wind), but there will be a half moon tonight. Since it’s almost evening, there are no UVs to worry about. But if there WERE indeed nasty UVs to worry about a little smiley face with sunglasses would appear on the command unit display to warn me of the dire consequences of going outside unprotected. I could even program it to go off as an alarm if the sun were to get out of control.
I have absolutely no idea what the barometric pressure is doing.
Last night at dinner my husband told me that he thought when the barometric pressure was going down it was a bad thing. When it was going up it was a good thing.
“You don’t want it to go down,” he explained without a smile on his face.
I told him I thought he was mixing up the barometric pressure gauge with another interesting gauge he’s familiar with and that perhaps there were too many Viagra and Cialis commercials on Sunday television football these days.
But back to the weather…
Someday I will write a long treatise on the importance of barometric pressure and how to tell whether it’s good or bad when it goes up or down.
One more thing about the weather station command unit. It will not tell me the correct time.
See, everything works fairly well, from what I can tell, but the time. I can figure out rain gauges (which I located outdoors, thank you very much), thermo hygrometer sensors and anemometers, but I can’t figure out how to set the time.
You would THINK that setting the time would be fairly simple, especially since it’s an ATOMIC CLOCK and it’s supposed to set itself at least every 24 hours through some sort of government-sponsored radio signal.
Nope. Not here. Not this atomic clock.
Frankly, I’m really hosed off about it too, especially considering the big fat checks I have had to write to Uncle Sam the past four years. You would THINK he could at least give me the time of day. Harumph.
But back to the weather…
As soon as I have about four or five hours, I will figure out how to set the time.
I do have a couple of other observations about the installation and instructions that I would like to pass along, just in case you decide you want your own Honeywell Professional Weather Station.
- One of the most important instructions is that you must insert all the batteries into all the monitors before putting the batteries into the main unit. They really weren’t kidding about this, so don’t even try inserting those batteries unless you want to waste 20 minutes trying to figure out why your rain gauge isn’t working. You’ll feel stupid when you read the instructions when they say don’t do that.
- The instructions also tell you that the wind meter should be installed away from buildings, trees and other obstructions about 33 FEET off the ground. Okay. Two things about this: 1) WHY must it be located 33 feet off the ground? 2) Never mind about #1. I’m not locating the thing 33 feet off the ground. You would need a 33 foot pole to accomplish this away from buildings or trees. Frankly, I’m much more concerned about how fast the wind is here where I’m standing with my little dogs in the garden so that I can complain about it to no end here on Bumblebee Blog. End of story. The wind gauge is 4 feet off the ground. Consider this fair warning if I report the wind speed and you want to know if it is measured through some meteorologically approved method. It’s not.
My final word about this whole weather business is to concede that I have joined the ranks of the weather geeks–or at least I will as soon as I figure out whether the barometric pressure is anything I can compare accurately to activities regulated by Viagra and Cialis.
I really apologize to Layanee at Ledge and Gardens for my wisecracks about people who document the weather. I even endorse Carol at May Dreams Gardens getting a weather radio so she knows if a tornado is going to plow down her house.
The temperature outside is now 61 degrees and the humidity is 57%. Winds are from the south at 1 mile per hour. The barometric pressure is no doubt doing something interesting, although I have no idea what that might be.
Your weather reporter in these parts,
–Robin (Bumblebee)
P.S.
If you are a dog lover, you really must see my little Papillon, Sarah. I cannot tell you how many times she makes these cuteness-perfect poses during the course of a day. I just want scoop her up and smother her with kisses.
