Dear WeatherCat Station caregivers,
This morning there is a noticeable breeze, but my weather station stubbornly insisted that there was no wind speed. The wind direction was moving as usual, but no wind speed. The winds were a bit light and I could see that the cups were bouncing a bit but not turning, but this looked worrisome. Finally I looked at my wind run graph and it looked very suspicious. There was an abrupt end of wind on Tuesday afternoon as you can see:
. . .
But doesn't the wind run start up again this morning? . . . . .
Let's not get ahead of the story!
Well my anemometer assembly is almost 7 years old, so it was possible it had failed. Still, before giving up all hope I decided to give the anemometer cups a quick bump and see if that would solve the problem. I got my lopper pole and as I looked up at the anemometer mast, I sure thought I could see a small black object hanging off the cups. I have the cups a nudge and . . . . hurray!
Immediately, WeatherCat reported wind. So that small black object must have been . . . . .
So the next time somebody complains about a weather station having "bugs" perhaps it is best to ask -
which kind!?!?? Cheers, Edouard
P.S. It is the first time a spider has locked up my anemometer. I guess the San Francisco bay area has enough wind most of the time to prevent those critters from ever lassoing an anemometer.