Garden Valley Current Weather

(Click on image for full view of ranch.)
Current Weather Conditions at the Reil Ranch
Garden Valley, Idaho
Time & Date of Last Data Upload: 20 Mar 2010 1:30 AM
(Your browser will automatically update this data every hour if this page is left loaded.)

Garden Valley Zone Forecast
Boise Area Zone Forecast
Jump to "Lite" Version of This Page
Jump to Still & Time-Lapse Web Cam Recordings
My Wunderground Weather Page
Featured Time-Lapse Video Weather Event
(Note: Video file "First Snow" is 6.2 Megs in size)

Manually Tabulated Data

Note: All data values below are in "inches." Also, these values are hand tabulated and entered on this page, so they will not be updated in the same hourly cycle as the rest of the data. I will update this data after each significant storm when time permits. The snowfall measurements are taken at the location of my weather station on Anderson Creek Road, so they may not match snowfall depths in other locations in Garden Valley, especially up the Middle Fork drainage.

Snowfall at Weather Station Location
Storm total = 1-1/8"
Rain Equivalent= 0.24"
Snowfall total to date: 46"
Notes: Very wet snow.
Last update: 10:30 AM, 24 Feb 2010

Current Station Readings

(Figures in parentheses indicate hourly change)

Temperature:	25.5°F (-1.4)
Dew Point:	20.8°F (-1.1)
Wind Chill:	25.5°F (-1.4)
Wind Speed:	1.0 MPH (0.0)
Wind Direction:	ENE
Pressure:	27.31 in Hg (0.0)
Rainfall Rate:	0.0 in/h (0.0)
Current Conditions:	Overcast
Time Of Sample (local):	20 Mar 2010 1:30 AM

Gages

Graphical History

Note: These graphs may be displayed in either 24-hour or 7-day format. If I lose a data set due to technical problems, I will switch back to a 24 hour format until I have at least one full day of data history logged. This page is still a work in progress, as is the LWC weather program that interfaces between this page and the weather station. The program is still in "Alpha" and has not yet been publicaly released for "Beta" testing, so it still has many bugs to be found and fixed. Periodically the results of a bug shows up here.

Solar Radiation

Note: Snow is an almost perfect UV reflector, so if any snow falls and remains on the UV detector it will not register any UV radiation, while in fact there may be intense radiation from the sky, as well as reflected upward from the surface of the snow. Therefore, if you look at the UV graph and do not see any indication of UV radiation, we may still have a dangerous level of radiation present. So please use care even if the UV Index shows a zero reading.

UV Statistics
Current UV (change in the last hour): 0.00 (0.00)
Highest UV Today: 0.00 at 1:01 AM
Average UV Today: 0.00
Average UV This Week: 1.03
Average UV This Month: 0.78

Theoritical Cloud Base Elevation

The following graph of "Cloud Base" elevation is the result of a totally theoritical calculation involving the air temperature at ground level, current relative humidity, and the theoritical "adiabatic lapse rate." It assumes uniformly changing conditions in the vertical air column, which of course is most often not the case, especially in mountainous regions. The graph will still show a theoritical cloud base even when there are no clouds in the sky. The calculated cloud base height is simply the theoritical height, above the weather station, where the air temperature will have decreased enough (adiabatic lapse rate) to reach the dew point. For those living in Garden Valley, if you look at Charter or Garden Mountain, both about 7000' in elevation, and see clouds touching their tops, and then look at the graph below, and it indicates the cloud base is close to 7000', then you know the atmospheric conditions are relatively uniform, and match the theoritical rates of change as you move up the air column. I include this graph only for your interest.

Sunrise & Sunset Times

Sunrise Today: 7:46 AM Sunset Today: 7:56 PM

Hours of Sunlight Today: 12:10

Sunrise Tomorrow: 7:45 AM Sunset Tomorrow: 7:57 PM

Hours of Sunlight Tomorrow: 12:12

Current Boise Weather Radar
Note: Garden Valley is in the NW corner of Boise County, about 3/4" above the "e" in the word Boise.

Weather radar for Boise & Garden Valley.

Weather radar for Boise & Garden Valley.

Current Web Cam Image

(Note that there is a Web cam time-lapse video link below this image.)

This is a Web cam image of our horse & donkey barn, shot through my blacksmith/decorative metalworking shop's NE corner window. Most of the time there isn't a lot to see unless we have a snowstorm or thunderstorm in progress. Things are usually pretty laid back here on the ranch. The picture is taken looking NNW up the valley of the Middle Fork of the Payette River. If it is Winter you may be able to see little more than piled up snow, with the peak of the barn sticking out above. The snow berm can reach 16 feet, the limit of my tractor's bucket reach.

Time-Lapse Web Cam Movie

Please refer to the Web cam image description above for camera direction and location information. This movie is composed of a one hour sequence of Web cam images captured every 30 seconds. At present I do not keep my computer running 24-7, so after it has been off it will require a period of one hour before it can compile and display a complete hour's worth of time-lapse movie frames. I am presently using a 320 x 240 format, but I may up that to 640 x 480 soon. For those not living in Garden Valley this video will provide a near real time view of our local weather conditions. Even though this is a small format video please expect to wait for a short period while the video loads after you click the link below. Thank you.

Note: You can save the video to disk and view it with your own viewer. That will allow you to drag the corner out to enlarge the viewing window and give you a lot better detail if the video happens to have captured something special. The video will be between 3.0 and 3.5 megs in size, so expect some download time, depending on your connection speed. The video will be about 12 seconds in length if it is a full hour capture.

Time-lapse movie
(Of the past hour)

Selected Weather Related Time-Lapse Movies
(Length varies)

Our First Brief Snow

Links Relative to This Weather Page and Garden Valley
Note: Be sure to check the date and time for each map. The lightning maps are delayed data maps.

Garden Valley Zone Forecast

Weather Events Journal

Weather Station's Historical Records

Mountain Shadows Weather Station

Western GOES Satellite Image

Hazardous Weather Warnings

U.S. & PNW Current Lightning & Probability Maps

PNW 60 Minute Lightning Strike Map

Boise NWS Radar Loop Animation Page

Zone IDZ403 Fire Weather Forecast

Garden Valley Fire Protection District Home Page

Latest Idaho Earthquake Information & Map

Idaho Clickable Fault Information Map

My Web Site Map

Weather Station Location & Info

The data source for this weather page is my "Vantage Pro2 Plus" weather station, which is equipped with a fan aspirated temperature sensor, additional solar sensors, and a rain gage snow melting heater for winter. The weather station is located above my lower south pasture where there is nothing to interfere with wind or precipitation measurements. Our location in the Central Idaho mountains has coordinates of 44 degrees 6.703" N, 115 degrees 57.556" W, and an elevation of 3,051'. This is a deep snow area, so I will also be including storm snowfall totals, and total snowfall to date, snow measurements.