Category Archives: Weather

Everyone talks about the weather

Winter storm #1, 2014

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Our first winter storm of 2014 is mostly history. Who says it doesn’t snow in South Carolina?

This storm was interesting in a couple of ways. Because of the temperature profiles, there was really no question about what sort of precipitation we were going to get: it was all snow. Usually there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether we’ll get rain, freezing rain, sleet, and/or snow. Often it ends up being freezing rain, resulting in ice on everything.

The other interesting thing is that this storm drew in moisture off the Atlantic, and the amount of snow was actually higher towards the south. A friend in Greenwood, to the south, reported about 2 inches of snow, while I measured just under one inch.

As usual, the effects of this weather continue. Any snow that melted but didn’t dry up will be ice by morning, “black ice”, so called because you often can’t see it when you’re driving down the road. If you’re not careful, you can end up in the ditch with no clue what happened.




Can’t let this go out without some creature content:

Autumnal Equinox

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The seasons are changing. It’s noticeably quieter out on the lake now as migrants are starting to migrate and everyone else is preparing for winter. I’ve seen evidence of this at my backyard feeders too.

We’ve already had the cultural end of summer (Labor Day), today is the astronomical end of summer (the equinox), and even the weather seems to be pushing towards a meteorological end of summer. Some trees are already starting to turn:


The sky was mostly overcast yesterday morning when I was out on the lake, contributing to the feeling of “fall”:

But this morning was bright sun, and some fog hanging over the North Rabon Creek (taken from US76, where I was cycling):

When I got back from taking that picture, a group of jays were squawking up a storm at the house. There was a hawk hanging around and everyone knew about it (sorry, just had the cell phone for this one):

NIghttime solar radiation readings

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I noticed that my solar radiation readings seem to behave oddly. After sunset, when you’d expect the reading to go down to zero, it’d actually rise up to around 100 w/m2 and pretty much stay there through the night, sometimes dropping back to zero for periods of time. You can see that here.

After a perhaps-unnecessarily protracted Email discussion with Davis and a phone call, a replacement sensor was procured.

I installed it Saturday morning (it was starting to rain and snow, so we didn’t miss accounting for much solar radiation), and it seems to be working properly now.