Sea Smoke

Winter has finally arrived on Lanes Cove--with a vengeance. The winds last night were blowing steadily 25-30 MPH with 35 MPH gusts. With temperatures in the single digits, that puts the windchill around -13F.

Sea smoke (a kind of frigid fog) forms in these conditions. Pushed around by the winds the condensed water vapor has the appears of smoke. You know it's cold when you see it. We've seen a little ice around the edges of the cove, but I think the water temperature is still relatively warm. It will take sustained low temperatures (below 20F) to create heavy ice in the cove.

I noticed the last lobster boat left the cove about a week ago--actually pretty late in the season. So the activity in the cove is pretty minimal, except for some pretty ferocious weather.

More Data From Lanes Cove

I got the webcam up and running about a year ago and the results have been great--just under 30,000 hits so far (averaging more that 100 a day). I have had many very nice e-mails saying how people enjoy watching the weather, or the goings on on Lanes Cove. Of course this time of the year the days are short and so there's less to see, but people still tune in.

I've always wanted a weather station and this year Santa was very good to me. I now have a Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 system. Data from the weather station is read into my computer where I combine it with the webcam page (www.lanescove.us/webcam). It is very preliminary--the weather data is updated every minute, but the webpage only updates the webcam image automatically--you have to manually refresh the page to get the absolute up to the minute weather data.

Right now the anemometer is mounted off of my deck, so it doesn't register exactly the same wind speed and direction that you might see out on the breakwater. We are protected from northeast winds, so you rarely see substantial winds from that direction. Maybe someday I will put a remote anemometer out on the breakwater--now that would be cool!

Anyway, hopefully it is helpful and fun and I pledge it will get better in the future. Let me know what you think.

Quiet New Years on Lanes Cove

If you've been reading about Lanes Cove here, you know that things happen here. Last night I was expecting the usual, someone setting off fireworks to celebrate the New Year. I was up late working on adding a weather page to the On the Cove website and at midnight I expected the usual show of rockets and loud explosions. But midnight came and went--nothing--not a sound. Peace and quiet. No revelers.

Strange. Maybe the party's moved. Or maybe the party-ers are getting older. I don't know, but it sure was quiet.

Happy New Year! Hope it is a good one for you and thanks for reading.