I finished installing my new Davis Weather Station earlier this week on Monday. I got the Vantage Pro 2 model for my birthday back in June, which measures wind direction, wind speed, outdoor/indoor temperature, humidity, pressure, and rainfall via a tipping bucket. Albuquerque isn’t known for its trees, but our backyard actually has quite a few. So, it was challenging to find a site in the yard to locate the instrumentation without gettting “rain shadowed” or sheltered by trees. I chose a site on the east side of the backyard, and mounted the annemometer on a 20 foot pole to hopefully get as accurate of a reading as possible (without getting too carried away). I secured the 20 foot galvanized pole to a treated 4″ x 4″ wooden post, both of which were secured in a 2.5′ deep hole with 5 bags of concrete. The rest of the instruments are pieced together as one unit that I mounted on the wooden post beneath the annemometer. This model is solar powered and transmits the data wirelessly to a LCD console indoors. Eventually I hope to get an external data logger which would enable me to display the data on my webpage which could prove to be very valueable for forecasting.

We have finally received some better moisture intrusions into the Albuquerque area, and as a result we’ve had isolated afternoon thunderstorms over the past few days.  For the most part, storms have been short-lived and unfavorably located (just a few sprinkles here at the house), but a “monsoon pattern” will hopefully take over before too long.  I haven’t had much opportunity for any lightning photography yet, due to all of the overtime I have been working lately.  I finally had today off, and was busy doing other errands when Margie let me know there was a nice double rainbow outside.  So, I snapped a few quick shots from the front yard.

Looking to the west I captured a partially hidden sun behind remnant cloud debris from dissipated storms with crepuscular rays diverging outward.