Sunday featured continuous, stable cold temps with very little diurnal range (3.5° – lowest range since Jan 21, 2017 when I had a 2.9° range) due to the steady rain (1.13″) most of the day, once again barely getting over the freezing mark all day. I hunkered down with the Super Bowl and watching my tipping bucket rain gauge continously report the light, steady rain. The rain fell mostly between mid-day and the early evening, with the heaviest rain recorded in the late afternoon near the end of the precipitation (max rain rate of 1.10″/hour at 1745). It was actually the heaviest calendar day rain since a 2.92″ downpour was recorded back on July 28, 2017. The day remained full of clouds to accompany the steady temperatures and continously falling light rain, which at times was freezing on some surfaces. The Sunday maximum temperature from the VP2 (34.6°) was recorded at 1009 while the minimum temperature (31.1°) was recorded at 0507. Dew point temperatures started low during the drier AM hours but rose quickly before the onset of the precipitation by late morning, ranging from a low of 12° at 0131 up to 33° around the time of the heavier precipitation at 1804. Relative humidity values behaved similarly to the dew point (96% – 42%). Barometric values started relatively high early today but dropping significantly through the rainy part of the day, ranging from a high of 30.34″ at 0000 down to a low of 29.77″ much later at 1857.

Remember now you can get the VP2 data on Weatherlink. You can access the data through http://www.weatherlink.com/user/walrusman444.

I am posting daily to weather underground. My ID is KMDROCKV200 and my station is called “Gardens of Traville.” Data is online, normally just about in real-time. I contribute daily to cocorahs as Rockville 2.8 WNW, Station ID MD-MG-115. Please remember that Weather Underground does not report snow data, and reflects what is recorded automatically through the tipping bucket VP2 gauge.

I prepared my Super Bowl dinner of “crock-pot lasagna” which took only a bit of time to prepare but several hours to cook, while I was sleeping in the later afternoon. When I got up just prior to the beginning of the Super Bowl, my apartment smelled wonderful, and I turned the crockpot down from low to warm. It was delicious, and I have plenty leftover. The Super Bowl was an exciting game, and really refreshing to see someone else win instead of the Patriots (Final score Eagles 41, New England 33). Two former Wisconsin running backs, James White (Patriots) and Cory Clement (Eagles) played well and had significant contributions to the game. Several records were set during the game, mostly due to the awesome offensive outputs by both teams. I assisted Ray again with some official weather observations from the area, once again to help out our weather friend Bobby Miller. I worked some more on organizing my 2017 spreadsheet data, and getting some backlogged April data caught up so I can finish out the year and produce an annual summary.

We cleared up eventually overnight, and temps lowered into the upper 20s with wind chills falling and some freezing noted on some surfaces. My rain gauge catch was partially frozen upon late morning retrieval. Monday is sunny and cold, with temps rising slowly through the upper 20s into the low 30s early on this Monday afternoon with lows tonight in the mid 20s. Tuesday should be partly cloudy (AM clouds/PM sun) with high temps warming into the mid 40s and lows in the upper 20s. Wednesday looks cloudy and rainy (100 POP) with high temps in the low 40s and lows in the mid 20s. Precipitation should start out as freezing rain in the AM but change over to rain by mid-day. Mostly sunny skies should return on Thursday and colder, with highs in the mid 30s and lows in the low 20s. Friday should warm up again, under partly cloudy skies with high temps in the mid 40s and lows around 30°.

On the Channel 4 weather website at 1455 radar is showing a bit of snow in NE Maine, and also an area of snow encompassing most of the state of Iowa and parts of neighboring states on all sides.

As of 1455, the data from the VP2 (coming from the ground radiation shield about 4 feet off the ground just under and out from the balcony) and the Lakewood WXBug station are as follows:

Sunny skies and colder early this afternoon.

Station Relative Location Temp RH DP     BP     Wind High/Low temp Sunday
VP2             Ground           31.7  55  17 30.25S   NA    34.6/31.1

There was 1.13″ of precipitation in the cocorahs gauge on Sunday through midnight obs. The VP2 tipping bucket rain gauge under my balcony recorded 1.04″ of precipitation on Sunday through midnight. The max rain rate (MRR) for the day was 1.10″/hour at 1745.
Sunday’s precipitation 1.13″
January precipitation final total is 1.83″
February precipitation is 1.33″
Sunday snowfall 0.0″
January snowfall total was a meager 1.4″.
Snow on ground 0.0″ (reported to the nearest half-inch)
The seasonal snowfall total is 5.2″.
Year-to-date precipitation total is 3.16″

WX Bug Lakewood 4500 ft, 31 50 15 30.21″R W 2 G WNW 17 
                              140° from station                             34/9

The Lakewood rain gauge recorded 0.94″ of precipitation on Sunday. It is still reporting a 0.16″ monthly (February) and 2018 year-to-date (YTD) amount of 2.40″ unchanged from yesterday’s report.

Temperature from the VP2 at 2400 was 32.6 RH 96% BP 29.81″R DP 31.7. Cloudy, damp and cold.

Good afternoon from the sunny, cold, drying out but snowless Walrus early on this Monday afternoon.