NOTICE!!!

July 10, 2018

After much thought I am sharing this with you. There are major changes coming in the near future for BeeWeather.com. Some that are very good and others than may or may not be good, it depends on your prespective.

The first thing is that the weathercam's computer in downtown Luverne died. After inspecting it it appears that the power-supply has gone bad. The computer is an old Dell 760 SFF and really isn't worth the investment of time or money to repair. I thought that I would simply replace the old Dell with one of the spare computers that I have on hand but while considering this I began thinking about the future of BeeWeather.com.

There are several options I could choose for the weathercam. I could move it over to the old Gulf Station and change the camera view significantly. It could aim to the southwest or to the northwest. Either way the water tower, or the clock, or both would be cropped out of the image. Or, I could move it several miles west of Luverne to the actual weather station location...some grass and trees and maybe a shot of a small bit of Highway #10. These are the options if I decide to put the weathercam back online. Whatever the case, the old location will not be used again due to the electricity expense. The images archived from that location are the last ones.

There are a couple of enhancements that are coming to BeeWeather, though. A new temperature/humidity sensor will replace the ageing Davis unit. The sensor is more accurate and responsive than the old one. Another thing that will be happening is that the Davis rain gauge will be replaced with a new, more accurate Rainwise 101 tipper gauge. Using a CoCoRaHS manual gauge I found that the Davis unit was under-reporting. The first hint of the issue with the Davis gauge was a nearby friend of mine who consistently reported more rain than I did. Nothing unusual about someone getting more rain than me, and there were a couple of miles separating us, but to consistently record more rain raised a warning-flag. Upon installing the CoCoRaHS gauge the problem with the Davis gauge was evident. Once these two upgrades are made the weather station will be more accurate than it has ever been.

Since it went online back in 2013 BeeWeather.com has been a hobby for me. Being interested in weather and enjoying tinkering with computers this was a natural for me. I also thought that a local weather-reporting website might be something that the community could use. Most weather conditions for the Luverne/Rutledge area that are reported on the internet come from twenty or more miles distant from the Luverne-Rutledge area. BeeWeather.com is located roughly three miles west of Rutledge, meaning that a weather system entering the area from the west or southwest first arrives at the weather station and then moves on to Rutledge and Luverne...this provides just a small bit of "early warning" for that area. BeeWeather is an expense both in money and time as most hobbies are...but, priorities change.

There is a low volume of people using Beeweather, which somewhat surprises me, but it is what it is. In five years almost zero feedback has come from the community which tells me there is little interest in having a local weather reporting website. BeeWeather also submits data to WeatherUnderground which, due to issues with that website since IBM purchased it, I will be discontinuing supplying data to them. Thus, after lots of thought, I am voicing the idea of closing the website. My thoughts are of pulling BeeWeather.com back to an intranet site rather than an internet site, meaning it will be "in house" via a private network and not available to the general public. This would save a good bit of time and money for me. It has been fun keeping BeeWeather.com online and I have got to know some very good people in the weather-hobby forums. But, maybe it's time for a change in direction for it.

These changes will take place over the next few months so if you would like to give input regarding this please feel free to do so. I would welcome those comments. The improvements to the station equipment will definitely be done. Taking BeeWeather.com off-line is still undecided. I've supplied contact information below.

Kol tuv

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or email from your email client to: feedback@beeweather.com .

John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved.