WELCOME

Silver Valley, Lakewood, CO

Our Silver Valley weather observations began with a simple, inexpensive entry- level setup manufactured by Oregon Scientific for personal use around 1999. In December of 2006 we replaced this equipment with a serious upgrade to a Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus station, the sensors of which live on our north-facing balcony. Not entirely ideal for north or south wind measurements due to building obstructions, but east/west measurements are very accurate given our micro-environment here in Lakewood. This effort provided our first Silver Valley neighborhood-centric weather station…providing a much better look at our weather than that reported from Denver International Airport 45 miles away! Our first real efforts reporting weather online thus began in December of 2006 utilizing the Davis’ “ WeatherLink ” software hosted on a dedicated PC runnning Windows XP. Data from the remotely located Davis Wx sensors are transmitted via RF signals to the Davis Console which interfaces with the PC via a Davis “Standard Data Logger” connected to a USB port. The results as displayed on a monitor…or by viewing webpages produced using WeatherLink…while effective…are very basic in nature. In 2007 we augmented our WeatherLink software with an application built by a third party, Dave Heider, known as “Weather View 32,” also referred to as “WV32,” Version 7. WV32 produces excellent screen displays, adding a bit of 3-D effects to displayed instruments and charts. However, WV32 receives poor to no support from its author. Having made the investment, I try to keep it running by making local changes to the software. We were hosting WV32 on a dedicated PC running Windows XP at the time. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, we began experiencing problems with the PC and its “up time,” and concluded it was time to upgrade both the PC and the software. We took our WV32 PC offline on the 8th of August 2018 at which time new uploads to the WV32 website stopped. We’ve since completed installation of a new replacement PC for WV32, and installed upgrade WV32 Vs 8. We’re now back online with our WV32 Weather Website. We periodically calibrate our weather data using a Kestrel 5000 meter to ensure accurate measurements and displays. Our weather sites include various reports generated by the weather software in NOAA formats including 1) This Month’s Cumulative Data, the Previous Month’s Cumulative Data, and Data for the year. Also included is a page full of weather terms and definitions relating to displays presented on our weather pages, as well as additional information pertaining to weather and its effects. Provided on our WeatherLink page you’ll find links to our WV32 page (WV32 Silver Valley Weather), to our Wunderground Weather page, and to our Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) account. CWOP is a public-private partnership having three goals: 1) to collect weather data contributed by citizens, 2) to make this data available for weather services and homeland security, and 3) to provide feedback to data contributors in the form of tools to check and improve our station’s data quality. For visual pictures of our weather we’ve provided a link to the NWS’s enhanced radar image. You can animate the NWS image by clicking on any of the “LOOP” menu selections. Also provided is a satellite image from GOES-East Band 07 NR Sector imaging for a better visual of our Colorado (and several adjoining states) weather. We also provide information relevant to sunset, sunrise, moon phase, and station location in our “Almanac” section. Also provided is a link to a similar weather station setup in Aurora, CO operated by Jim Lillard of HLS Systems, Inc. I lived in Aurora for 21 years prior to moving to Lakewood, CO…and still find the weather there to be interesting with a different spin on the weather from what we experience here in Lakewood! Thanks Jim for providing this additional insight into Aurora living! http://wxlink.hls-systems.com/

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