Coastal Pacifica Blog

Inaccurate Rain Totals

2008-11-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

In case it's not obvious, there have been a few days where the rain guage incorrectly read dozens of inches of rain.

The rain guage enclosure had blown off last week and I fixed it, thinking that the wind was batting around the rain levers. However, the past few days it did the same thing. Not sure what to make of it yet.

Anyway, any daily readings over 1-2 inches should just be ignored until it gets fixed.

High rainfall totals due to surf

2008-02-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

As high tide is approaching, along with the deep swells due to the storm, my rain gauge is really racking up the inches. It is not due to a fault with the sensors but rather all the spray from the roaring surf hitting our roof.

Thank god our seawall is holding up nicely so far...

Weather station back online

2008-02-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

The weather station powering coastalpacifica.com has been completely refurbished and is now back online. In addition, it is now once again roof-mounted, for greater accuracy in wind speed readings (it had been deck-mounted for the past year).

Thanks to Davis Instruments for the quick turnaround in doing the repairs.

It feels good to once again know exactly what's happening at the coast...

Some serious surf -- video attached

2008-01-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Wow

2008-01-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

Wow, the past day or two have been absolutely intense.

A major storm went through with near hurricane-force winds at the coast (exceeding hurricane force in the hills). We have had 2 power outages, the first one lasting about 18 hours and the second one lasting 4 hours (which is why coastalpacifica.com was down).

The coast, and our backyard, has been pounded. We took about 10 huge wave hits to the house, completely destroying anything with dirt and plants. Our neighbors two doors down had their back door smashed in; our next door neighbors' seawall had the middle section collapse. The neighbor on the other side has had his large berm partially destroyed. And we continue to sit in our livingroom in complete awe as wave upon wave smashes up against our sliding glass doors. The fact that they have not been blown in has stupified me -- these things, built by Milgard, are tough!

We have finally gotten smart; later this year we are going to lose the last bit of gardening we have and go completely concrete. If it weren't for all the mud, rocks, and plants shoved up against our house we would be in pretty good shape (except for our hot tub cover, which got bent by a wave).

Anyway, there are a lot of people to monitor the weather data updated on coastalpacifica.com; unfortunately, the waves -- which have actually been going over the house and onto the street -- have knocked this completely out of commission. This is a big bummer, since I personally rely on this data (as do a bunch of surfers). I will need to replace the entire unit.

For those of you who can't imagine what it's like living right on the coast, here's a picture from our livingroom Christmas day while we were opening gifts. Suffice it to say that these pics are mild compared to yesterday and today. I may post some video later...

Rain Gauge

2007-12-06T23:40:00.000-08:00

Rats -- it appears my rain gauge is not registering. I see a "low battery on station" message flashing across the console, so I will replace that this weekend and see what happens.

Stay tuned...

Lost contact with outside unit

2007-08-23T23:31:00.001-07:00

It looks like I've lost communications with the weather unit. It may be a dead battery, or it may be something more serious.

I will tend to it this weekend...

Wind readings are back online

2007-04-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

I rushed home from work early today so that I could install the replacement annenometer that arrived yesterday.

Wind readings are now back online. Feels good to be back...

New annenometer on the way

2007-04-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

I should be getting a refurbished annenometer any day now. An update will be posted when it is online...

Annenometer diagnostics in progress

2007-04-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

I received a special test cable from Davis Instruments and it looks like I may have a problem with the head assembly.

Hope to have wind speed readings back online soon...

Annenometer still on-the-fritz

2007-03-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

I was hoping that my annenometer sensor would suddenly start transmitting again, but it looks like that just might not happen.

(FYI, I consider the annenometer to be the single most important tool when you live beachside.)

I will be contacting Davis Instruments technical support within the next few days to discuss options.

Yeah, this coastside environment is brutal for even the most robust of electronics -- or concrete, or stainless-steel nails, or roofing, or siding, or glass, or hot tubs, or dirt, or...

grrrr...

Wind Sensor Down

2007-03-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

It looks like my most important sensor, the annenometer, has gone out. I tried "rebooting" the transmitter unit, but to no avail.

Sometimes it just comes back on its own; hopefully it will again this time.

Kind of a bummer -- we've had a very windy spell recently, and I have no idea how high the gusts have reached...

Finally able to post to blog again

2007-03-17T23:42:00.000-07:00

I am finally able to post updates to the blog again.

Back in January I upgraded the server to Windows Vista. The upgrade itself went fine; no problems. However, many tools that I rely on were not quite ready for Vista, secure ftp being one of them.

Long story short, some critical tools are now working and I'm starting to feel human again.

A lot happened to the site in this period, from a server outage which lasted about a week, to power outages, to the current issue where my weather console is not updated to reflect the new daylight savings time change.

Anyway, it feels good to be able to post problems once again...

Recent storms

2006-12-27T23:28:00.000-08:00

Other than a brief 2-hour power outage this evening (see related post), this recent batch of storms has been nothing like last year's.

We only lost a few yards of newly-planted sod, our seawall seemed to hold up, and our house wasn't completely spanked by waves.

So far, so good...

Power Outage

2006-12-27T23:23:00.000-08:00

Folks,

We had a power outage this evening from about 9:30 p.m. P.S.T. until 11:22 p.m. P.S.T. It looks like a major neighborhood transformer went down.

No weather data was lost as everything is battery-powered. Nonetheless, coastalpacifica.com itself was inaccessible for the duration.

Weather station fixed

2006-10-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

I received detailed instructions for replacing the battery and "rebooting" the wireless unit. It worked like a charm -- we're now back online!

Weather station no longer transmitting

2006-10-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

The weather station has completely stopped transmitting all data.

Davis Instruments has been contacted. I will probably bring the unit in for repairs on Tuesday (they are just across the bay in Hayward).

Living some 30 yards from pounding surf creates an intense marine environment that tends to corrode even "non-corrosive" materials. This was completely evident the last time I brought the unit in for repairs earlier this year -- all of the circuit boards, wires, and even screws were in pretty rough shape.

This time, however, I saw little evidence of corrosion as I opened up and inspected the unit. So, something else must be going on.

Anyway, I have worked with Davis Instruments before, and their customer support is among the best I have ever seen. Absolutely top notch.

I hope to have the unit back online and fully functional in 2 weeks. In the meantime, other parts of the site will continue to get updated -- i.e. severe weather warnings, barometer readings (since it is an internal sensor unaffected by the transmit problems), and the recent Clear Sky Clock, which is an algorithmic attempt at predicting astronomical "seeing" conditions for a spot about 4 miles from here (but at an elevation several hundred feet higher above sea level).

I am amazed by how many people actually use and rely upon this site for data. With this in mind, I will get the unit repaired as fast as possible -- just in time for the typically awesome Northern California winter season...

It's not just the annenometer...

2006-10-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

It looks like my whole unit is acting up. None of the outdoor sensors are reporting any data (the barometer is still functional, however).

I will attempt to clean and dry out the unit this weekend. If I still don't get any love, I will have to send the unit in for repairs.

This marine air is very harsh...

Flaky annenometer

2006-10-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

My annenometer may be on the fritz; it was reading zero yesterday despite a nice little breeze.

It seems to be back, but I may need to replace it soon...

Another power outage

2006-03-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

We were down for about an hour and a half today due to yet another power outage in Pacifica (the third one in a month).

It is time to seriously consider going off the grid...

Extreme Proxigean Tide Feb 28th

2006-02-26T00:26:00.000-08:00

The coming storm system is just in time for the Extreme Proxigean Tide occurring at New Moon this Tuesday, the 28th. I suspect we may be in for another coastal pounding...

Astronomy Cafe
Farmer's Almanac

New temp/humidity sensor

2006-01-19T00:09:00.000-08:00

A new temp/humidity sensor has been installed. This will fix the constant 100% humidity readings as well as the abnormally high temp readings.

The fan has also been disconnected, since the high-salt air constantly getting sucked in seems to be the main reason this unit keeps giving me problems.

Anyway, glad to have these readings back to normal...

Two huge waves -- caught on tape!

2005-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

For the 3rd day in a row we awoke to pounding surf battering our house -- and this time we caught some of the action on tape!

pounding-surf.wmv

Powerful surges this morning

2005-12-28T12:52:00.000-08:00

We took an incredible pounding by the surf the past 2 mornings. Our backyard is a mess, with mud 5 inches thick piled up against our back door and debris everywhere.

Our shovel somehow ended up in our neighbor's yard (which is also a mess).

It's a good thing we had boarded up our main window the day before -- it probably would have been smashed in by one or two particularly fearsome surges.

There was some minor yard erosion, but nothing that can't easily be fixed.

We lost about half a dozen 8-ton boulders from our seawall, which will need to be reset sometime next year.

All in all, a pretty wickedly intense experience the past 2 mornings...

Best waves yet

2005-10-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

The northwestern swell which hit us today may have produced the best surf I have seen yet.