How to adjust mobile wind vein/anemometer

[Tyler Allison]

Okay so I have a question for all the mobile mesonet folks.

My home weather station requires me to align my wind vein/anemometer in a very specific direction so the direction of wind can be displayed. Do you mobile mesonet folks just ignore direction or do you have some nifty way Im not thinking about for aligning the wind vein.

Sure would be a pain in the butt to get up on the car roof and reposition everytime you stopped and wanted a reading.

thanks. ps: I did an archive search for answer with no luck..sorry if I missed it

 

[John Diel]

Since you are moving all the time in different directions, and the mast mount is always pointed in one direction, the only "easy" way I know of is to point the vane to the front of your vehicle. When stopped, point the vehicle north and your display will be correct (or, at least close). Generally, I try to keep tabs on where north is and I can look at the display and tell myself, "OK, the wind is from the north at XX mph, because I'm pointed east".

Some of the more tech savvy folks and some that worked with the Vortex Projects may know of a better real time GPS correction solution that will take into account direction of travel, speed traveling, and a known calibrated wind speed. I don't have it and don't feed my readings into the computer.

Basically, I ignore it and use it primarily for the wind speed unless I know I'm facing a certain direction and I'm stationary.

 

[Mike Mezeul II]

I do basically the same as John. I have my aerovane set to where "North" is the hood ornament on my truck. I than look compare what reading I'm getting to the real compass in my truck and thus figure out what direction the wind is really coming from by that. For the instrument I have though, you can buy a serial interface compass (~$400) and it calculates automatically what true north is when your data is displayed. It's a nice lil thing to have, but for what I'm using my instrument for right now, I'll save my money. Hopefully in the future I can get it, it'd be a nice thing to have.