Spider Warfare 101: Fine Offset Edition

[Buford T. Justice]

This has been my first Spring with my Fine Offset weather station: the Weatherwise WH-2080-PC. We had a really good rainfall here about a month or so ago starting around 10 PM. I looked at my station close to midnight and it told me it wasn't raining. TERRIFIC! SPIDER WEBS! So I went outside in the rain at midnight, climbed up on the roof thanks to my mad ninja skills, took the batteries out of the sensor, and took apart and cleaned the rain gauge. Satisfied, I put the rain gauge back together and put in a new set of batteries while I was up there. I didn't see any lights on in the neighbors' houses so I must have been quiet enough.

Today it started to rain while I was asleep. This time there was only 0.01" of rain reported. Knowing it rained at least 0.10", I knew it was spider-cleaning time again. Instead of just cleaning it out, I decided to remove it and bring it inside. As soon as I pulled the cover off, it was full of cob webs and a damn wolf spider crawled out. I caught it with a paper towel, cussed at it, then executed it.

I had a ripped window screen out in the garage so I decided to cut pieces out of it and hot glue them to the bottom drain holes and also hot glue shut any unnecessarily open holes on the bottom of the rain gauge as well.

I went to Walmart and bought this which is in the Hobby Section (where Grannies buy their yarn):

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ad-tech-Hi-Te ... n/17404366

It didn't come with any glue sticks so I bought a pack of these:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ad-tech-Multi ... t/17404365

After the glue gun warmed up which took about 10 minutes or so, I got started. The glue is fairly clear instead of that nasty, chalky white stuff. You just have to take your time with it and do a good job. It doesn't matter what the gluing looks like just as long as there is a good seal and it doesn't obstruct anything.

I decided to not only screen the drain holes but also across the screw holes I don't use to keep spiders from getting in through the clips for the cover. I glued through the screen and around the edges double-checking to make sure there were no gaps at all between the screen and the bottom of the rain gauge. Other than the drain holes for the teeter-tooter buckets, I plugged all of the other holes carefully with glue.

Since I had to clean the cob webs out, I pulled the bottom pin and removed the teeter-tooter and gave it a good cleaning. When you put it back in, make sure the little magnet on it is pointed towards the rain sensor box. You should see a discoloration on the side where the magnet has rocked back and forth.

I hope this ends my war with spiders

Attached is a picture of the bottom of the rain gauge after I was done. You may notice little streamers of glue, but I removed those after I took the picture.

[uncle_bob]

Good stuff. Let us know how it works out.
I've only had trouble with my anemometer and spiders, if it's calm long enough the little bugger web it up and no more wind speeds :/

[steve]

I believe that others have done this modification, with a successful outcome, so hopefully you'll be OK now. I have to say that I don't like the sound of a "Wolf spider"!

[Buford T. Justice]

It was a smaller wolf spider at a little over 0.5". If it got bigger, it might have started playing on the teeter-tooter and I would have had some interesting rain fall rates and totals until it hit its teenage years and thought it was too cool to play on a teeter-tooter. Some of them can get as big as 2" or a little more around here.

[NO0C]

And what did you do to assure the critters can't enter the portals where the rain drops fall into the tipping buckets?

[Buford T. Justice]

And what did you do to assure the critters can't enter the portals where the rain drops fall into the tipping buckets?

The top hole already has a thing in it that divides it into 4 smaller holes. I doubt they could get in that way. Not impossible, but doubtful. The bottom holes are much bigger.

[Buford T. Justice]

Oh crap! I just noticed that the two screw holes on the base of the rain gauge are still open. They are covered with screens at the bottom, but not the top. I will use some small plastic plugs to prevent spiders from crawling into them. I don't want to hot glue those in case I ever need them.

[Buford T. Justice]

I went to Home Depot and found these:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/3-16-in-Nylo ... /202209555 (The picture is not right. These are longer and fit the hole and shaft well.)

You need to remove your rain gauge to get these in as they fit tight and you have to be careful pushing them in, but these do work. Hopefully my rain gauge is now spider-proof!

[johnh67]

Thanks for this post, I just did the same mod to my rain bucket before any spiders could get in there.