By Robert Tracinski I recently wrote about the wretched reporting on the claim that 2016 was the “hottest year on record,” using as my main example a New York Times article by Justin Gillis that gave his readers none of the relevant numbers they could use to evaluate that claim. None of them. If you…
Yes, where are the error bars?!
I have come to the bitter realization that “Social Media” is a misnomer. It should be called “Unsocial Media.” Over the past few months, I have encountered some extremely arrogant, nasty, snide, and definitely unsocial, people on Facebook, and to a lessor extent, Twitter. Comments and posts have become increasingly derogatory, and normally would never be said in person. The constant barrage of negativity has also made me guilty of posting angry comments, out of frustration, from time-to-time.
Facebook has become an echo chamber, using algorithms designed to mainly display posts reflecting your point of view. The posts are all too often re-shared to create an unfriendly atmosphere for people to calmly discuss opposing, informed opinions. It has become petty, juvenile, and a fount of logical fallacies and poor arguments. Eventually, you increasingly end up not seeing opposing, informed points of view, and then, not knowing that they even exist. Instead, your circle of Facebook Friends becomes a group of sycophants.
Therefore, I have deactivated (not deleted) my Facebook account, and deleted the apps on my devices. Facebook is not worth the anger, frustration, time, and the loss of friends and relatives. I have kept Facebook Messenger open for my true friends.
Reconsidered and set up another account focused on Scotties, Drones and Weather. No politics or users will be blocked, not unfriended. Noticed I have more features and options now.
In December 2016, I entered a contest to redo the web page for The Penn State University Model Railroad Club. Yesterday, I learned that I won first place!
The club liked many of the elements I used. They may not use my submitted web site “as is,” but they will definitely incorporate most of what I submitted, and will give me credit.
As of this evening, the pyranometer data is now online. Here is the link to The Weather Underground site. The site ID is KPAPORTM11.
In a previous post, I talked about installing a new pyranometer to my weather station. Below is a graph of today’s solar radiation flux in W/m^2.
The graph clearly shows when the instrument was in shade (7:30 – 9:30 AM EST). Maximum value was after noon due to the fact that the longitude is about 3 deg west of the 75th meridian and because the equation of time for today is 3 minutes. The maximum solar elevation angle was about 28 deg. The optical depth of the atmosphere is significantly higher at such a low angle than if the sun was at zenith.
2016 ANNUAL CLIMATOLOGICAL SUMMARY
CITY: Stormstown STATE: PA
ELEV: 1385 ft LAT: 40.8 LONG: 77.87
TEMPERATURE (°F), HEAT BASE 65.0, COOL BASE 65.0
DEP. HEAT COOL
MEAN MEAN FROM DEG DEG MAX MAX MIN
YR MO MAX MIN MEAN NORM DAYS DAYS HI DATE LOW DATE >=90 <=32 <=32
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16 1 34.3 17.3 25.9 1.3 1211 0 59.4 31 5.0 5 0 12 30
16 2 40.0 23.1 31.9 5.1 960 0 65.9 28 0.5 12 0 7 22
16 3 56.6 33.6 45.3 8.8 618 8 76.2 9 16.0 3 0 0 14
16 4 59.6 35.7 48.4 0.7 522 23 80.9 18 19.3 6 0 0 10
16 5 68.8 48.4 58.5 -0.1 273 71 88.6 28 36.6 19 0 0 0
16 6 79.1 56.5 68.2 0.9 70 166 87.7 11 43.2 10 0 0 0
16 7 86.2 62.0 73.6 2.4 28 295 95.7 25 49.6 3 9 0 0
16 8 85.3 62.7 73.2 3.6 24 278 92.7 12 50.8 23 3 0 0
16 9 76.9 53.9 65.1 2.9 127 131 89.0 10 39.8 25 0 0 0
16 10 63.9 43.4 53.2 2.1 388 22 79.6 18 28.4 26 0 0 3
16 11 54.1 34.3 43.9 3.1 636 2 73.6 2 23.2 23 0 0 13
16 12 37.6 24.6 31.2 1.4 1047 0 52.1 27 5.9 16 0 7 24
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
61.9 41.4 51.6 2.7 5905 997 95.7 JUL 0.5 FEB 12 26 116
PRECIPITATION (in)
DEP. MAX DAYS OF RAIN
FROM OBS. OVER
YR MO TOTAL NORM DAY DATE .01 .1 1
---------------------------------------------
16 1 1.58 -0.92 1.12 10 7 2 1
16 2 2.99 0.29 1.23 3 9 3 1
16 3 1.92 -1.38 0.55 13 10 6 0
16 4 1.85 -1.15 0.50 28 12 5 0
16 5 3.52 -0.28 0.73 21 17 10 0
16 6 2.12 -2.08 0.60 5 11 8 0
16 7 1.16 -2.64 0.26 30 8 7 0
16 8 5.61 2.31 3.47 10 11 8 1
16 9 3.49 0.09 1.41 29 10 7 1
16 10 6.95 4.05 3.62 20 13 7 2
16 11 1.22 -2.18 0.62 30 5 3 0
16 12 2.07 -0.73 0.76 18 12 4 0
---------------------------------------------
34.48 -4.62 3.62 OCT 125 70 6
WIND SPEED (mph)
DOM
YR MO AVG. HI DATE DIR
---------------------------------
16 1 4.7 42.0 10 W
16 2 4.5 38.0 25 SW
16 3 4.1 54.0 28 SE
16 4 4.0 43.0 3 NW
16 5 2.7 34.0 8 SW
16 6 2.9 34.0 12 SW
16 7 2.5 26.0 15 SW
16 8 2.2 35.0 16 S
16 9 2.1 24.0 8 NE
16 10 2.9 49.0 20 WNW
16 11 3.9 41.0 20 W
16 12 5.4 34.0 12 W
---------------------------------
3.5 54.0 MAR W
Today, I installed a new weather instrument, for 2017 and beyond, to my personal weather station (PWS). I installed a pyranometer to measure the solar radiation flux density (W/m**2). The data from the instrument will be sampled every 30 minutes, along with the other parameters that are already being logged.
I have been told that the State College region is cloudier than most. Now I can measure just how “gray” the environment is here.
It took a little over two months to not worry about what day of the week it is each day. It’s now necessary for me to consult a calendar of some sort to learn the date and day of the week. My only requirement is to remember to put out the trash and recyclables on Friday morning.
Since I retired, and except for mornings when I have an early appointment, I have rarely used my alarm clock. Instead, one of our Scottish Terriers, Tillie, provides me with a wakeup bark. Usually, between 6:30 and 7:00 AM, she’ll let me know it’s time to get up. She’ll also get more insistent if I ignore her, or if she feels that I am taking too long. Then she’ll whimper in a classic appeal to emotion. Then it’s time for our morning walk and breakfast.
Stormstown Dispatch 