(Click on image for full view of ranch.)
Current
Weather
Conditions at the Reil Ranch
Garden
Valley,
Idaho
Time
&
Date of Last Data Upload: 19 May 2013 12:52 PM
(Your
browser
will automatically update every 15 minutes if this page is
left loaded.)
Note:
I am pleased to now offer you a valley floor forecast, specific to
Crouch and the floor of Garden Valley, and a "Regional Forecast"
that will be more accurate for the upper elevations surrounding
Garden Valley, useful for those living higher up on Castle Mountain,
in Mountain Shadows, and elsewhere. Hopefully
these two very different forecasts will help overcome those forecast
errors caused by microclimate anomalies in Garden Valley that are
due to elevation differences. I think this will
be a major improvement in Garden Valley forecasting.
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 quarter-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 near 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, and on the mountain slopes nearby where depths twice to three times
what I record may occur.|
Time Of Sample: |
19 May 2013 12:52 PM |
|
Temperature: |
61.3°F (-1.6) |
|
Dew Point: |
37.4°F (3.3) |
|
Wind Chill: |
61.3°F (-1.6) |
|
Wind Speed: |
4 MPH (0) |
|
Wind Direction: |
W by N |
|
Pressure: |
27.02 inHg (-0.01) |
|
Rainfall Rate: |
0.00 in/h (0.00) |
|
Current Conditions: |
Clear |
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 publicly released for "Beta" testing, so it still has many bugs
to be found and fixed. Periodically the results of a bug shows up
here.
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 Index 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.
The
following
graph of "Cloud Base" elevation is the result of a totally theoretical
calculation involving the air temperature at ground level, current
relative humidity, and the theoretical "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 theoretical cloud base even when there are no clouds in the
sky. The calculated cloud base
height is simply the theoretical 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 theoretical rates of change as you
move up the air column. I
include this graph only for
your interest. 
This is a Webcam image of our horse & donkey barn, shot from a
waterproof webcam housing on the upper NE corner of my
blacksmith/decorative metalworking shop. 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.
You
can
save the videos listed below to disk and view them with your own
viewer or watch them directly in your browser. Downloading them to
disk first will allow you to drag the corner of your viewer window
out to enlarge it if you wish. The videos are between 3.0 and 12
megs in size, so expect a short download time depending on your
connection speed. The video viewing time may be as short as 12
seconds for an hour long time-lapse sequence, to as long as 2
minutes for a full day time-lapse sequence. I have discontinued the
hourly time-lapse videos and am now selecting worthwhile still image
sequences to create my time-lapse videos from. I adjust the Gamma, compress
the video, and
even add music to some if they are good enough. I think these videos
are much more worthwhile than the often boring hourly time-lapse
segments.
This monthly
newsletter includes lots of useful weather and climate information for
the average person as well as the trained weather spotter. The seasonal
long term forecasts, monthly forecasts, and current weather discussions
can be found here. Note: I no longer maintain a long term archive of
back copies.
Yes, "Global Warming/Climate Change"
is real, and it is already
making profound, and possibly catastrophic, changes to our
environment and planet. That is not disputed. The big question, is
the cause man or nature? Here is a download link to a 1 hour and 44
minute video recording of the May 6, 2010 Senate hearings on the
causes of Global Warming and data validity. This is a big video
file, 536 Mb, but this hearing includes both "sides" of the debate.
You be the judge. It is a must-see for everyone who has a vested
interest in climate change, and that includes everyone. Download the
file to your hard disk and then view it on your Quicktime video
viewer in full screen. The video quality is good enough to view it
full screen. If you do not have Quicktime, it is a free download
for Mac or Windows.
This
link
is to a small 2 minute 15 second video that explains what Global
Warming is, and its relationship to CO2.
This dramatic and
spectacular "Extreme Ice Survey" time-lapse video was produced by
James Balog. If you have a family and children you have a vested
interest in the future. You owe it to them to educate yourself about
Global Warming/Climate Change. This video requires no background in
science for it to be stunningly clear that Global Warming is real,
and that it is reaching critical momentum.
This
somewhat technical Web site provides excellent and easily understood
information about Global Warming/Climate Change. This is not an
issue to take sides on. There are no sides to this issue, there are
only the facts. You can have those facts explained to you in clear
easy to understand terminology in the excellent tutorials on this
site. This site is for those who wish to fully understand the
processes involved in Global Warming.
Perhaps not, but of all the climate change data I have
studied in my 20+ years of carefully following Global
Warming research, perhaps the following simplistic graph
is the most easily understood and impactful. The perfectly
in-sync CO2, sea level, and global temperature curves, do
demonstrate Global Warming is real. This graph goes back
400,000 years, but data, although of less certainty, is
available that continues this graphical relationship more
than 600,000 years. Notice where the CO2 level is today at
the extreme upper right corner of the graph. You do not
see the sea level and global temperature jumping up in
sync on the graph, simply because the CO2 rise occurs in
so short a time period that the impact of the CO2 change
has not yet had time to show up in the temperature and sea
level measurements at
the scale of this graph. I hope you will take the
time to explore the above and below linked resources.
Thank you.
There is an old saying, to determine the
credibility of your information source, follow the money
trail. Unfortunately, that is as true in science today
as everywhere else. "Pure scientists," those who work
primarily for the love of the research (pure science),
and have no agendas to push, are mostly found
doing research in various academic institutions or NASA.
Compare those with "scientists" who are on the payrolls
of large corporations, public utilities, political
organizations, or other organizations with a self
interest or agenda to push.
Think back to the "scientists" who
worked for the tobacco companies, and their "scientific"
data and opinions, all bought and paid for, and all
outright lies. So it is prudent to learn where the money
is coming from to support a particular organization,
scientist, or expert, and often that information is
carefully covered up. The fossil fuels
corporations and some electric utilities have
launched a huge misinformation campaign to discredit
Global Warming in an attempt to prevent costly CO2
capture technology installation requirements from being
enacted into law, and there are many so called
authorities, agents of the oil or power companies, out
there now presenting false information and outright lies
to the public, as well as to the employees of the
companies themselves. To follow the money trail behind
many of these climate disinformation "experts," visit
the following...
This link will take you to the "Climateprogress.org"
page
where you can watch an excellent video discussion by two
top level scientists, Christopher Field and Michael
MacCracken, regarding the possible range of
impacts of Global
Warming, the role of the IPCC, and how to maintain the
credibility of the IPCC in the face of well funded and
organized attacks by the oil and power industry's
disinformation campaign.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.
