Old Weather Forum

Morgan wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:12 am Stuart, You make my perspective of the world so much bigger, deeper, personal and obviously colorful! I really enjoyed the link to the maps. I often wonder if Australians might dismantle their globes and reassemble them south end up.

We already do that?


See also
https://thomo.coldie.net/travel/norwegi ... the-world/

Oh, Stuart! This one is going to have me thinking and realigning for a loooong time! Don't know about all the "Proofs" however, but I read more ridiculous things put out as truth all the time. I will have to keep an open mind.
Thank you so much! Morgan

Your welcome Morgan.

When I look at it my brain says it's all wrong, even though it really isn't.

We had cold weather and my apartment was nice and warm - in fact a tiny bit too warm.
Now we have warm weather and my apartment is a wee bit too cool

Not quite sure where to put this. I've been worried about the change to VOIP phones rather than the landline system which is used by my current phone. This tale of the problems after our recent storm Arwen is a salutary lesson in the limitations of current technology and the indifference of technology suppliers to the plight of their customers. It's very rare to have such major outages so when you really need to communicate you'd better have a handy pigeon to pass on the message. As someone who may, in the future, rely on an alarm bracelet to continue to live safely in the community it is a worrying thought that in real emergency involving a power cut IT WON'T WORK and BT DON'T CARE.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-59564480

What a mess!

If only the people who designed a system were forced to rely on it!!!

This is why I still keep my landline phone even though I never use it. I have not heard of any plans by my local phone company to switch the landline phones over to VOIP, but it wouldn't surprise me if that does happen sometime soon. Would my landline phone continue to get power from the phone company if it was switched to VOIP?

I expect there would be a strong resistance here if plans were announced to switch the landlines over to VOIP because that would require everyone to switch to new handsets. However, that is what is happening now as my cell phone company is switching to VOIP. They are requiring everyone to replace their phones to be compatible.

I think in the UK the plan is to switch to VOIP in the next few years for everyone - there may be a basic handset at a discount but my area hasn't been contacted. Since I live near to Glasgow I will have mobile phone as an option BUT if the alarm systems used by many vulnerable people use the internet line then they may be in trouble. Scenario: power cut, no lights, person falls and can't get up, mobile phone by bed but wearing alarm bracelet/pendant. They press the button but no response. Can't get to phone so person lies there until power comes on or someone comes who can get into house.

My mother used to leave her pendant by the bed and say defensively - I know where it is. There is even less chance of someone carrying their mobile phone with them, at least until the younger generation grow old. Mine (non-smart phone) is in my handbag which is downstairs by the coats.

Scenario: power cut, no lights, person falls and can't get up, mobile phone by bed but wearing alarm bracelet/pendant. They press the button but no response. Can't get to phone so person lies there until power comes on or someone comes who can get into house.

My insurance company gave me a fall alarm pendant that uses the cell phone network instead of the land line to get help. So if I'm out hiking and fall it will still be able to help, and has GPS to give my approximate location. However, the pendant still needs to be charged daily. So it will eventually fail anyway during an extended power outage. My mother had one that used the land line and would only work if she was near the house and there was power.

I am looking into getting a heavy duty backup battery system that would be able to keep charging my critical electronics for several days. It is supposed to be able to even run a refrigerator for something like 8 hours. It costs around $600 US. I have considered a gas powered generator, but don't like the noise, pollution, and need to store the gas to power it. With the battery powered system, you just keep it plugged in until needed. However, unlike the gas powered generators, where you just keep adding gas, once the battery runs down, that's it until power is restored.

Hi Gordon.
Looks like a small array of solar panels or a mini wind gen like a vertical windmill may be the answer.
https://www.doityourself.com/stry/home- ... sign-ideas

or for a more professional job I like the header picture at this site


https://cleanenergysummit.org/best-vert ... -turbines/

I do however notice nearly all of the models on that site are currently not available on Amazon but it gives you an idea of designs and sizes.

I looked into wind turbines a while back and found that there just isn't enough wind at my house to generate much electricity. The amount of electricity generated would never pay the cost of the wind turbine during its lifetime.

I have lived here for over 20 years and the only outage that lasted for more than a day was due to an ice storm that hit when there was almost no wind. The weight of the ice caused tree branches and entire trees to come crashing down.
The wind remained calm for the following week until after power was restored. It was also mostly cloudy the entire time. So the solar panels wouldn't have been much help either.

I believe the battery storage device will be a good solution because the longer power outages are so rare here.

During that lengthy power outage, I had a Prius that I used to charge devices. I kept the engine turned on, but it only ran when its battery started to run down. I no longer have a hybrid, but do have a car that will shut off the engine if it is not moving and the battery has enough of a charge. So it can be used in a similar manner, except that the engine will run more often because its battery is so much smaller than the one in the Prius.

At 70yo when we moved into the new house with 4kw solar I decided the payback time for a battery was to high even though we do not use much power.
Over the 10 months we averaged 14.8kw/d output from the inverter and used on average 4.782Kwh @ 21c/kWh grid electricity and exported 10.03kWh @ 10c/kWh return. Plus we had to pay Grid access charge of 79c/day. We were away from home for a 6 weeks of that time.

It's been several years since I last looked into home wind turbines. I just took a look around and was surprised at how many are on the market now and how inexpensive some of the are. However, they all seem to need a minimum wind speed of 4 to 6 mph to start the generator. Winds that fast are very rare at my house. So they wouldn't be producing much electricity; most of the time none. As I write this, the wind speed is 1 mph with a peak gust of 3 mph over the past hour.

My rain gauge says just over an inch of rain after yesterday's storm! That is about 1/4 of last year's total. Now, if it could keep that up every other week for the next 3 months!

A nice warm(ish) day today.
1700hrs 34.6C, Rel Hum 40%, wind Northerly 6-11kts.
Last nights low 14.7C

Up here that qualifies as hot if not heat wave. Mind you the humidity would be MUCH higher, so you would drip quietly.