Where we are up at 400-odd metres on the south side of the sierra blanca is a little bit breezy. Actually it is more than just a bit windy, best described as frighteningly windy on some occasions (as when large trees in two of my neighbours gardens were blown over one day).
There is a tale that the costa del sol was the original costa del viento (windy coast), but someone decided that "sun" was a better advertisement for a tourist destination, with "windy" being co-opted by Tarifa when it decided to be a wind-surfing destination!
Anyway, it can be very, very, gusty and the winds are incredibly capricious due to the 2500m mountain behind us and the valley almost alongside us - and about 80 kilometres of nothing in front of us, all the way to the Atlas mountains.
Not least because of the damage the wind can cause (tiles, trees, plant pots, garden furniture, etc, etc), I have always had a yen to have an anemometer, if only to see what sort of wind speeds we can get. Long story short, last week I decided to get one - but as with all things, actually upped the specification at purchase time as I thought I might as well get something that showed rainfall (not much), sun (a lot), UV levels (frightening) and humidity (which makes it feel hotter) - and, of course, web connection.
Accordingly, I bought a Sainlogic WS3500 device which has all the functionality (and more) and which uses a pretty standard "engine" produced by Ambient (a 2902A) but marketed by any number of brands. Delivered within 24 hours, I was greatly chuffed to get it, but a little annoyed with myself for the amount it cost (150€ just for a toy, I guess). The cost was immediately discounted on the day it arrived, when my spanish lawyer charged me 120€ to tell me we didn´t need to submit changes to our "wealth form" that I had sent to her this year. Literally, thanks for nothing.
It was pretty simple to set up, just screw on the anemometer cups and direction arrow, slot in the rain-guage "catcher" and add some batteries (and to the display console). It does actually run on a miniature solar panel, so the batteries are mainly back up. Oh, and I had to connect it to my wi-fi. Now for this (and my security cameras) I use a separate wifi network which spoofs snoopers into thinking I am in Yorkshire (or Estonia, or somewhere I might actually have lived). Loaded the recommended web app onto the pc, and voila! - weather online.
Well, sort of. I had hoped to add the station as a page on this website via a link to a mainline weather site such as Wunderground, but I am struggling to get that part working at the moment (possibly due to being on a hidden private wifi), but I will add it to the website as soon as I can.
This is the sort of info it shows
with all the data also coming up as daily charts, as below
- now that is what I really wanted, as the yellow line is the average and the blue peaks give the gust speed. The lower chart shows the wind direction, but as can be seen, the wind is not playing-ball at the moment and is pretty moderate and veering (note tech term) all over the place.
Yesterday I installed the device "properly" after an initial "jury rigging" as recommended in the manual (yes, I did glance at it). It is now on a wooden pole, with a brilliant array of purpose designed (ok, bodged) fittings.If the pole warps, there may be a rethink, but I wasn´t particularly keen on having it on a metal pole due to the incidence of thunder storms around here. No chart for them, just a smouldering bit of plastic and a hole blasted in the balcony wall as an indicator of a strike I guess.
This morning there was almost some rain. Not enough to trigger the rain meter (which was reasonable as in Manchester it would have been described as "mist" I think).
... and in case you might be wondering, the weird bit of plastic around the cup is a recommended modification to try to stop birds from perching on the device and using the bowl as a toilet (and there is no chart for that either).
Like the look of that .lots info from it .