wviewweather.com

wxnut · Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:50 pm Post subject: Snow totals

Hi,

Now that the local area (Cincinnati) is buried in the white stuff, would it be
feasible to include snow totals? I assume that one would need the rain
collector heater (Davis pn 7720). Does anyone have any experience with this
device? From the photo below, it does not look very substantial.

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/weather_product.asp?pnum=7720

Ron
_________________
"Some people are weatherwise, but most are otherwise."
Benjamin Franklin

THogland · Joined: 26 Sep 2005 Posts: 33

I've got it on mine... The directions say that it'll keep the bucket thawed to -20F or something, but if it's colder you'll need a heat source (like a lightbulb) to keep everything warm enough to actually drain out the bottom. (I can't see how a lightbulb directly under the ISS won't screw up your temp readings, though...) It's a ~2" heater strip (the yellow thing lower left in your link) and the insulator for the funnel, plus hardware, cable, etc., screws in under the funnel, right next to the tipping bucket, and there's already knockouts for the screws and wiring. They included something like 50' of heater power cable, which was nice.

Mine just went through a nice cold snap (-20F or so) and other than icicles hanging off the bottom it worked fine. My history shows precipitation totals for days below zero - pretty cool Smile

I don't know how you'd include actual snow totals, since the VP doesn't have anything available that can do that...

chrisale · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 187

If it's of any use... one 1mm of rain generally == 1cm of snow I'm not sure what that works out to in inches. But at least with that conversion you could estimate snow accumulations whenever there is "rain" recorded in temperatures below freezing.