The sun temperature sensor is normally a temperature only sensor on top of the pole, but FreeWX-Wi has problems with this sensor when the temperature dips below 0 Celsius. So for the winter I changed it to a temperature & humidity and placed it on the pole. This sensor doesn't catch as much sun light in the morning and evenings in the summer months.
Hope an update for FreeWX-Wi will come out and fix this, but there hasn't been one yet.

Finally got around to upgrading the main computer that the weather station runs on.
The 9 year old Toshiba Satellite laptop was upgraded to a 6 year old Sony Vaio. Oh the horsepower now! Not that the system needed it, but the whine of the hard drive was getting to be annoying. The Toshiba was up and running 24/7 since March 2005 - that is impressive! Just need to find an old 4GB 2.5" hard drive to replace the whiny one and the Toshiba will be ready for service. They don't make them like they use to. (Boy I sound old now.) The new Sony is now a year newer than the main web server which is 7 years old. Cheap stuff can still be useful!
Cheers - JZ

Updated front page to a CSS layout design. I'll continue to work on the rest of the site as time permits. If you have any problems viewing the pages, please let me know.
Thanks

If it is going to be windy in Olds, it is most likely to be coming from the North-North-West or South-South-East. When the Chinook's are blowing in, then the South-West.

The graph here is showing the percentage wind direction from March 2005 to March 2008.

These graphs show the average day temperature by year. Data is taken from March 2005 to February 2008. You can see when during the month it is the warmest or coldest.
Tip: click on the graph image to enlarge it.

Welcome to the Olds Weather blog!

I'll use this area to post interesting weather information for the Olds, Alberta area. Also it will contain information about this weather station like maintenance logs and site information.

I'll also post interesting weather analysis reports from the data that this station has collected. Information like:
- average wind direction (did you know our average wind direction is NorthWest or South East? Not West like many believe.)
- month average temperature compared to Environment Canada's historic data (seeing warming trends here)
- barometer movements
- average temperature, wind speed, etc. (wind power isn't a good idea - our average wind speed over the year is too low, but solar is good.)

Other topics will be extreme weather for the area and other weather related information.

I don't get paid for this, so don't expect much. Most of the information posted here will be due to my curiosity or requested by someone.

Hope you enjoy the site and find it useful and feel free to leave comments in the blog (click the blog title to add comments).
Jeff

Graphs for February 2008

Wind Direction


Warmest part of the day in February

Shows sun heat build up and cool down for February.

Wind Speed Average

Shows average wind speed throughout the day. Calmest time of the day was between 7:30am and 8:30am.
Most common time for high wind speeds where:
- 12:00am to 8:00am
- 10:30am to 5:30pm

January was a cold month, but we had strong Chinook winds battling against the strong icy cold south-east winds. Toss in some wind from the north to make January the coldest on recorded for my weather station.

So did global warming take place in 2007?

I used Environment Canada's historic data for Olds, Alberta from 1971-2000 and compared it to the temperatures recorded from my weather station.

Compared where:
- Daytime maximum temperature
- Daytime minimum temperature
- Daytime average temperature

So the results are:
- 7 months where warmer overall
- 4 months where colder overall
- 1 month average and min where colder, but daytime max where higher.


The answer, YES - we had a warmer year compared to the averages on file.