A nip in the air greet’s new Sheiling Weather Station
After a very mild week for mid October with temps into the mid-teens even on the mountain, a change of wind direction to the North overnight meant a decidedly chillier feel to the air today, even when in fact the temperature was around 5c -hardly Baltic by ‘Gorm standards!
Use the Force Alan... Installing an external 2.4Ghz antenna for the SSC Hut router.
So today’s instalment of pre season training differed from the usual coffee and cakes in the Ptarmigan in favour of the somewhat more strenuous task of lugging 2 sizeable rucksacks and one holdall of equipment, computer stuff, weather station, tools, drill, 2.4m of stud timber and a 7ft mast to the Sheiling Trainer Tow, oh and a foot long phallic symbol dressed up as an omni-direction 2.4ghz antenna for the WiFi router in the SSC Hut!
Today’s work was part of the effort building from the Cherished Uplift Fund to improve the understanding of climate/weather conditions on the ‘Gorm to help provide a base level to study potential routes for optimising snowsports provision under different climate scenarios. The first stage is to get more real-time weather data from different elevations on the mountain and the Sheiling Tow is the first of 2, possibly 3 new Automatic Weather Stations that it is planned to install for the coming season.
The second new station is a high end Peet Bros Ultimeter 2100 destined for the M1 Timing Hut at 2800ft, just below the cut off via Horizon Road to the 105 from the M1 RaceTrack. Work is currently in-hand to restore power to the timing hut, an effort which will not just allow the new weather station but greatly increase the flexibility for race operations on the M1 again (an effort to which £250 has been contributed to the cost of re-installing power from the Cherished Uplift Fund).
It is hoped to provide a third new station at the Camera Obscura, this will be at exactly the same elevation and a very short distance from the manual Met Office recording station, which will provide a check against the automatic stations. Also as the manual record goes back to the 70s at this elevation, after 2-3 years of data collection on the AWS with numerous readings an hour stored, it will be possible to analysis how this data relates to the manual station, and go back and reanalysis the manual data.
Sheiling Tow AWS installed
Combined with the existing SSC Hut aws at 2500ft and the Loch Morlich AWS at 1050ft, this will give a record of weather at 1050ft, 2150ft, 2300ft, 2500ft and 2800ft. The short vertical spacing on the lower half of the ski area will provide valuable information on the elevation and behaviour of temperature inversions on the mountain - a phenomenon that could have significant impact (positive and negative at times) on the potential for snow making in settled conditions in which wind would not be an issue.
There is a suspected firmware issue with the SSC router preventing functional WiFi - a further visit over the weekend to attempt to flash the router and reinstall the firmware is planned, plus to finish up a few odds and ends that need completed. All being well live real time data should be available in a few days.
A huge thank you to Alan Brattey (Olderalan) and Maryln for assistance today, plus Jim Cornfoot at CML.
Tags: AWS, Sheiling Tow, WiFi