Cumulus Support

Is it possible that I have had not a breath of wind since 6am yesterday (41 hours of no wind?!!)

It seems odd -- I am not at home just now so I have no idea what the actual conditions are -- I see temperature, pressure, and am told that it has been snowing.

I will be back tomorrow evening so all will become apparent but I can't believe that there has been no wind

The wind does seem very light in that area, but it still seems a bit odd. Clogged with snow?

Actually, that's a good point. The snow has maybe frozen on the pointer thing (I know it has a real name but it escapes me and I am tired, lol)

Tsk daj, it's not the pointy thing that gives you wind speed, it's the whirly rotatey thing

Yup - if snow has stuck, partially thawed then re-frozen - Bob's your cross dressing auntie ! (Usually happens in calmish conditions)

Same thing happened to me the other day.
Turned out the "thing" was frozen and covered with snow.
I got the ladder out, cleaned it and gave it some WD40 - and it is spinning happily now (in spite of the temperature).

told you I was tired!! It was the office night out last night and I only just got over the fuzzy head by lunchtime today; I then had so many things to do before I finished up for the holidays. No more work until 6th Jan for me!

Tomorrow I will have real names for the pointy and whirly thing as my brain will re-engage

When I used to live where it actually did snow, my whirly thing often got clogged. Rather than get a ladder out, I used to throw snowballs at it!

Wouldn't recommend snowballs: the whirly thing is probably brittle when it is freezing cold outside.

I got as low as -17C in February and the whirly thing was working, but there was no snow and probably no damp weather prior to it so nothing to freeze.

I think i will stick to the ladder idea -- with some WD40 too as that sounds like a good idea. I will check the 'pointy' thing too

Um.....uh.....<clearing throat>....for future reference on a weather forum shall we refer to these "whirly and spinning" things properly as anemometer and wind-direction indicator?

Nah. They're helios and airplanes. Besides for me to pronounce anemometer its as hard as "cinnamon" and "aluminum".

Got go ...gotta check on my spinning thing.

Same here; mine stopped (jammed) at 4pm yesterday despite a light breeze; there's no way I'm climbing on the roof with a minus 5.7 degree air temperature.
Mike.

Mine also stopped due to freezing/snow (maybe it's the wrong colour snow!)
Because it's up a 30 ft pole, I rigged up a spare at low level.. that too proceded to stop at regular intervals, in spite of WD40.
Interestingly the direction indicator has not frozen/stopped
Looking at the anemometer in operation it freezes up in between the rotating and fixed elements in 2 ways due to:
a. water droplets/vapour freezing between the rotating and static elements (the heat of a hand cures it!!)
b. Snow build up over the outside of the same 2 elements


1. Whilst the anemometer bearing itself is "sealed" unfortunately, the joint where the rotating part and static part meet , although small, is not shielded allowing water droplets to freeze there.
Maybe some form of vertical extended "skirt" attached to the rotating part and covering the joint may work.

2. The anemometer arms are "too short" and the "cups" too small to provide sufficient torque to ensure rotation in damp freezing conditions and fairly light winds "throwing off" snow and water droplets (obviuosly irrespective of the lenght/size in certain conditions anysuch thing will freeze up)

My wind direction indicator also appears to be stuck as well as the wind speed sensor, but the Sun is on them so hopefully even with -5.1C degrees of air temperature, they will both unfreeze.

I've noticed as expected that the rain sensor doesn't appear to measure snow at all, unless the snow fall is thawed by the sun.
I think this could be modded to work by wrapping a heater element around the outer casing which operated with a thermostat set to perhaps +4 degrees, but whether that would be worth all the effort is debatable as we only get a few days per year of snow in East Anglia each year on average; this year is a bit of an exception.

Mike.

Hooray, mine has unjammed now and both wind sensors work, could be due to 7mph wind from the South West.
Mike.

Update: found out what released it; a 13mph wind at midnight last night...

Now I can see why my wind sensors are not recording!!!