Larry Myers's Page

How is it going Larry? I haven't heard back from you in a while, neither has Gary Gallaher (not from here on the backyard community but through regular email). Were you just waiting till after the snowfall season to join up with us on ACON with your monthly data? It was a record breaking snowfall season, and a really tough one to measure and document with accurate snowfall data. I hope you will join us soon and forward your monthly data. Gary is in the middle of compiling the February report right now, and it wouldn't be too late if you could get your Feb data to him within the next day or two. But if you want to wait till March, or sometime later, that is fine too, just let us know.

Thanks,

Kevin

Larry- being able to "automate" snowfall data is possible but hard to do and not usually attainable by laymen amateur weather observers/enthusiasts. I am getting other variables automated soon, as I now have a Vantage Pro 2 weather station and am working on getting online with my data very soon. But I still do snowfall data the old-fashioned way. Measuring snow is not as easy as it sounds. When you have lots of wind, it blows around and you have to get an average reading by taking several measurements and averaging the amounts. If you go to work and it is snowing while you are at work, but then the sun comes out and melts it, or if the snow changes to rain and it gets warmer, and the snow either partially melts or completely melts, you can really have a challenge to figure out how much snow fell. I have to ask neighbors and other family members sometime. A snowboard should be used to measure the snow on, (a hard flat white surface such as a cutting board, or even a piece of white styrofoam) It has to be level, and out in the middle of the yard away from all obstructions, trees, and particularly away from the house. I have a small backyard with my townhouse,so checking around the neighborhood in addition to my backyard is sometimes quite necessary. You measure to the nearest tenth of an inch. Melting the snow catch, if you don't have a heater for your automated rain gauge (and those heaters don't always keep up, such as during the snowstorm we had on Dec 19) is also to be done. I employ a Lake Region, cocorahs 4 inch clear plastic rain gauge.It has an inner measuring cylinder and an outer cylinder. For much more info on this topic, including how to get one of these inexpensive gauges, go to the cocorahs website: www.cocorahs.org . A wealth of information on there, I contribute my backyard precip data to that website every day. You have to input your data yourself, no automated upload. About out of room here, more later in another msg screen. Thanks, Good luck!

Thanks Larry. Looked at your website and esp. the "about us" part- nice pics of your setup, we are always interested in them. How do you measure snowfall? Does your rain gauge melt the snow to get the liquid water equivalent? Just curious about that and how you handle that. Look forward to hearing from you. Kevin

Hey Larry. I grew up in Bel Air and my family is all still there. Went to C.M Wright high school.

Welcome to the community and thanks for beta testing on the WUHU.

Also I might add that several ACON members/data contributors are here on the backyard community. Look them up, ask them about ACON, make friends with them. The members/data contributors to ACON here on this site include Marty Brumback, Rick Holden and Floyd Abell.

Welcome Larry! I know another Larry Myers interested in weather living in Westminster MD and selling musical instruments and supplies. I am involved deeply with this site, helping out when I can, posting my daily wx - I just got a Vantage Pro 2 weather station and will be getting on the web with it soon. But going back to our historical beginning in the mid 1980s, we have a group of observers in the Maryland/Delaware region. We are ACON, Atlantic Coast Observers Network. Back in the mid 1980s, we had groups in each state up and down the Eastern seaboard. Some folded, some merged into other groups. The VA/NC/SC area and our area are the main ones still going, along with one up in RI/CT/MA. If you could look at www.jhuapl.edu/weather/education/ACONdata.html you can see our monthly reports posted online. If that looks like something you would be interested in contributing to on a monthly data basis, please get back in touch with me. We used to have an observer in your area (Lynn Albright from Fallston) who is still around and I am still in touch with, but she stopped sending her monthly data in for whatever reason so now we have no one reporting from your area in NE Maryland. If you put together a monthly summary of your data, and can provide daily temp and precip data to us on a regular basis, we would be quite interested in getting you into our group. Meanwhile, enjoy your experience here on the Weatherbug Backyard Community, and ask any and all questions you might have about the site and what we all do. Thanks! Welcome Aboard!