In weather station news, weather pros and amateurs alike have posted their captures of the pressure wave that was generated by the Tonga volcano event. The first wave, which arrived January 15th a few hours after the explosion, traveled northeasterly across the US and was visible on my station’s barometer. The second wave arrived more than 24 hours later. It had traveled the long way around the globe and moved southeasterly. My barometric graph plainly shows it around 1 AM on January 16th.
Years ago, I had one of the few weather webcams in the country. It produced daily timelapse movies of the sky along with the weather conditions recorded at my station at the time of the snapshots.
I recall that it took quite a bit of work, both physically and behind the keyboard, to get that little guy working. I’ve never lost my fascination for the weather cam process and recently decided to jump back into the hobby.
Many things have changed. Today’s cameras are a huge jump in picture quality and can be connected to the computer via an IP address. Also, the software to perform the automatic snapshots and timelapse movie creation is much more versatile than before.
If picture quality is important this is not a cheap hobby. It’s cheaper than drones, sports cars, airplanes and drinking, but still makes a dent in the wallet. For now, I’m using my pricey pan/tilt/zoom camera, and it does a pretty good job. Coming soon, however, is a super high-def camera with the ability to even capture starlight for what I hope will be some interesting night sky videos.
