Weather at NSC – 7-day History

2024-11-11 Update: In the On-the-hour Wind and Highest Gust plot, the Highest Gust value shown for each hour interval is now the highest wind speed over the entire 1-hour period. Read the Usage Notes for more details.

Welcome to the NSC Weather Station page. Except for the Water Level, the data displayed on this page is collected by the NSC-owned Davis Vantage Pro2 Weather Station, mounted on the lighthouse at the harbour entrance.

Alternative modal view of lighhouse: lighthouse
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Usage Notes

General

All times are recorded in Universal Time Coordinates (UTC) and converted to your device local time for display.

All Wind directions are relative to True North.

The wind, temperature, pressure and humidity charts were developed using the the Highcharts Library. Features of Highcharts include the ability to display conditions at any given time by hovering your cursor over a chart, and the ability to highlight or de-select certain properties by clicking on that property on a chart's legend. Highcharts is a commercially-available charting library available at no charge for not-for-profit organizations like NSC.

Wind Data Accuracy and Reliability

The Weather Station is mounted on the lighthouse at the harbour entrance. Winds from the northwest to the northeast (a 90° sector) reach the weather station unimpeded, providing reliable wind direction and strength readings. However, winds from the northeast to the northwest (a 270° sector in a clockwise direction) are obstructed by land, trees and buildings, and thus both the wind strength and direction are more variable than on the lake, and the wind strength will generally under-report the winds on the lake. The weather station does accurately report the winds at the station, but that may not be a reliable indication of the winds on Lac DeschĂȘnes.

Note: When no new data is available, either because the Weather Station is down, the communication link is inoperative or the WeatherLink Cloud storage is offline, the last available values are used, resulting in constant-value (straight-line) plots.

Weather Station Data

The NSC's weather station uploads its sensors' data every 5 minutes to the Davis Weatherlink Cloud Storage (named WLL) through a small device connected to the internet via the office router.

Every hour on the hour, the nsc server opens the latest 10-minutes data file already downloaded for the 24-hr plots, and stores the time, wind, temperature, humidity and pressure values in a running 7-day file. It takes about 25 seconds for the new data to be processed and displayed in the plots.

When you open or reload this page, the 7-day file is downloaded by your web client and processed to generate the charts below. To update the charts, reload the page.

The WLL data is also available to other weather websites, including Sailflow, Weatherlink, Weather Underground and CWOP.

Wind Direction Polar Plot

The wind direction polar plot is also known as a Radar Plot; it shows the most recent wind direction at the outside of the polar plot, similar to the depiction of the original NSC "Windicator". When the wind speed is 0, the wind direction is "frozen" to the last non-zero value until the wind speed increases again.

Wind Frequency Polar Plot

The wind frequency polar plot is also known as a Wind Rose. The average wind data points are grouped by speed and direction according to one of 7 speed ranges and 16 compass (cardinal) points. Groups are plotted as color-coded sectors.

On-the-hour Wind & Highest Gust

This chart presents prevailing wind strength and direction. The "Wind Speed" and "Wind Direction", plotted in 1 hour increments, are the last 10-minute average values (a snapshot) obtained from the on-the-hour data download. The "Highest Gust" is the maximum wind speed registered over the entire 1 hour period.

When the wind speed drops below 1 knot, the wind arrow is replaced by a small dot. When the wind speed is 0, the wind direction is "frozen" to the last non-zero value until the wind speed increases again.

Note that the 10-minute averages use in this plot (and 24-hr plot) is different from the 5-minute averages used in the 6-hr plot, and therefore the wind speeds, directions and gusts may differ.

Temperature, Pressure & Humidity

Self-explanatory, similar to the "On-the-hour Wind" details.

Disclaimer

NSC does not warrant the quality, accuracy, or completeness of any data presented in this page. The following weather information is provided on an "AS IS" basis without warranty or condition of any nature.

Suggestions? Errors?

Please contact the Weather Station Team.

Usage Notes updated on 2024-12-05.

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Graphics data updated at . Refresh.
A Current and 6-Hour History and a 24-hour History are also available.

....Loading the Weatherlink data file.


Page updated on 2024-12-08. Plot scripts updated on 2024-12-06.
Questions or Comments? Please send an email to the Weather Station Team.
Find out who contributed to this project in the Credits section.

Credits ×

Several volunteers contributed to the NSC Weather Station Project:

Data Manipulation and Presentation

Daniel Servranckx designed the data acquisition, conversion and handling from the Davis Weatherlink Live repository, created this page layout and content, and coded the Highcharts scripts that generate the embedded chart displays.

Note: development on the previous RBR Weather Station display by Yaro Shkvorets was used as a reference for the current design.

Weather Station Acquisition, Installation and Testing

Marek Dziedzic conducted the overall requirements analysis, liaised with potential vendors, created the purchasing specification document, created the Davis WeatherLink Live account, configured the network interfaces, ran hardware acceptance tests, calibrated the wind sensor, participated in the station mount design and in the overall web layout and application testing.

Hugh Morrin initiated acquisition process with the Fleet Captain, assisted Marek with the specifications document and mounting design, liaised with the Canadian Coast Guard for the authorization to mount the station on the harbour entrance lighthouse, participated in the overall web layout and application testing, and coordinated the physical mounting on the lighthouse with Gene Bruce, the Marine & Property Manager.

Maintenance and Operations

All the above individuals remain involved in the maintenance and operations of the Weather Station and display applications.

Funding

The Davis Weather Station and a 3-year subscription to the Weatherlink Pro Cloud Storage were funded through the NSC Fleet Captain's budget.