Announcement, Announcement, Announcement…

Arizona State University announced that Matthew Pace was a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Meteorology/Climatology graduated Cum Laude on Friday, May 9, 2008.

The image to the right shows Matthew Pace, Weather Bus.com owner/creator receiving his diploma.

Now on to his Master’s degree…

Below is a sunset time-lapse loop we created on April 30th. The loop starts at 7:09pm and ends at 7:13pm, with images taken every 10 seconds.

The mountain which the sun is setting behind is Camelback Mountain.

Enjoy!

We recently had the opportunity to take a tour of the Doppler Radar site located just south of Williams Gateway Airport, in Mesa. This unit supplies weather radar products to the National Weather Service in Phoenix, the local media and to the public. To see the latest radar images produced by this station, click on the link below:
http://weatherbus.com/radar_phx.php

Below are some photos that were taken on the tour. Due to the space constraints and poor lightning, the pictures are not the highest quality, but they should give you a basic idea of what the different components of the radar site look like.

Radar dome which houses the antenna.

Battery backup for the station.

Generator.

This is where the ‘pulse’ is generated to be sent out through the antenna, and where the return is sent to be analyzed by the computer.

The next few images are from inside the dome showing the antenna/dish and the motors which change the elevation angle of the antenna as well as rotates it.

Side of the antenna/dish.

Looking toward the top .

Another side view looking up.

The motors.

And finally, looking straight up.

Below is a map showing the locations of the Doppler Radar sites like the one seen above.

A ridge of high pressure has been building over the area over the past couple days resulting in much warmer temperatures across the region. Today, April 13th, the high temperature at our location was 90.5ºF, occurring at 3:44pm. This is the first time so far this year that the temperature has been at or above 90ºF and is the highest temperature was have recorded since November 7th, 2007, when the high temperature was also 90.5ºF. Below are the years from 2002 to 2008 listing the dates of the first 90ºF or above temperature reading for our location. As can be seen, this year ties the latest date to see the high temperature reach 90ºF.
2002: 92.1ºF on March 21st
2003: 91.2 on March 13th
2004: 92.7ºF on March 8th
2005: 93.2ºF on April 6th
2006: 91.6ºF on April 13th
2007: 90.3ºF on March 15th
2008: 90.5ºF on April 13th

The century mark is likely still quite a ways off. Below are the years from 2001 to 2008 listing the dates of the first 100ºF or above temperature reading for our location.
2001: 101.1ºF on May 7th
2002: 104.9ºF on May 14th
2003: 100.0ºF on May 13th
2004: 100.2ºF on May 3rd
2005: 102.5ºF on May 20th
2006: 100.4ºF on May 15th
2007: 102.5ºF on May 11th

Stay cool!

On March 31st, Weather Bus.com will be celebrating its third birthday!

We would like to thank everyone that visits and/or supports Weather Bus.com!!

If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc. about Weather Bus.com do not hesitate to contact us.