Update to HebWX

I've been doing some work on the system over the last few weeks and you may have seen some downtime with a couple of services.
Here's whats been going on:

1. Upgraded the Weather PC to a new Windows 7 machine. That was fun, making sure that I had the right drivers for all the add-ons like the Boltek Lightning Detector and upgrading the programs to work on Win7.
2. There's a new webcam. The old Logitech Pro 5000 didn't work with Win7 so I now have a LifeCam Cinema and that went into its permanent position yesterday.
3. Following a request from a site visitor, the old forecast pages have been included in the menu again, so you now have the choice of both.
4. I finally managed to produce the Weather Fronts on the Surface Pressure Chart. That's only taken about a year to get the script correct!!
5. There's a new page in the Astronomy menu for the local Star Charts, which I hope you find useful. 
6. There's a new section in the Homepage dashboard called "UK Last 24hrs" which shows the UK Highs & Lows. This is from the UK Met Office and I must say thanks to them for allowing myself & others to use the data.

I think that's about it for now. It's been a busy few weeks making sure that it's all running as it should but I hope you'll like the additions to the site and the new PC should make things more reliable from my side.

New Forecast Layout

As of today (6th Sept) there is a new layout to the Hebwx Forecasts.
I think it is easier on the eye and has all the information in one place.

You have the Summary forecast at the top of the page, the 5 day forecast appears as the default and there are tabs under the Summary that will take you to the Detailed Forecast (three hourly) and the Meteogram for graphs.

I hope you like it and, as always, I'd be happy to get some feedback on what you think of the new layout.

Note: There is a known issue with Meteogram when using IE7, some of the tick boxes are not in the right place and days of the week at the top run into the line from the menu tabs. This is being worked on and I hope to have a "work round" in the next few days.

Outage 27th July

Hebrides Weather was offline for several hours this morning (July 27th) due to a power network fault.
This now seems to have been sorted but I left the station offline for an extended period to make sure that the power had fully returned. It came back on at just before 10am but went off again some 10 minutes later.
All data has now been fully updated and the forecast & pressure charts will update at their normal time of aroung 1pm. 

Hebrides Weather Store

Another new page has been added to the site. The Hebrides Weather Store is powered by Amazon and lists weather, astronomy and photographic equipment, plus some books.

If you choose an item and purchase it through the Hebrides Weather Store, a small commission will go towards the upkeep and running of the Hebrides Weather Website.

If you would like to see something else added to the store then let me know.

iPhone & Space Weather Pages Added

I've added a couple of new pages to Hebrides Weather in the last couple of weeks.

The first one is designed for use with iPhones and other compatible media. It's similar to the normal Mobile page but has more things added.
You can find the new iPhone page here: www.hebwx.co.uk/iwdl/

The second new page is for Space Weather.
It gives the latest space weather forecast, solar activity, aurora and location maps for satellites, Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station.
The Space Weather page can be found here: www.hebwx.co.uk/wxspace.php

Increased Forecast Period

Following a request from someone attending the Hebceltfest in a week or so, I have increased the period that the forecasts cover from five to nine days.
The last 3 days of the forecast will be likely to some change and are not in any way accurate but they will give you some idea of what is expected.

Live Weather Off Line

There will be some interuptions to various parts of the weather site throughout today (11th May) due to the replcement of power lines in the local area.
As a result there may be a loss of the live weather, forecast updates, webcam etc.
Normal service should be restored by 5pm this afternoon.

The same will happen again on the 13th May between 3pm & 5 pm.

Interuption to Live Weather Data

Due to work being carried out on the local power supply, there may be some loss of the live data until 16:30 today.
I will try to keep the station up & running on the generator as long as possible but the system may have to be closed down at some point.
Normal service will resume once the power company has completed their work.

Emergency Weather Warnings issued by UKMO

The UK Met Office has issued Emergency Weather Warnings for Highland, Grampian, Strathclyde, Central Tayside & Fife, Southwest Scotland Lothian & Borders and Northern Ireland.

The warnings are for Severe Blizzards, Severe Drifting Snow & Very Heavy Snowfall and remain in affect until 0600 BST on Wednesday. There are further Advisory Warnings for heavy rain and snow for Tuesday and Wednesday.

There are also several Flood Watches in force for Scottish rivers, see the SEPA website for updates.

Events for Lewis & Harris

I'm pleased to announce that, starting with the January 2010 edition, Hebrides Weather now has an article in the Events free paper covering Lewis & Harris.
The articles look at a summary of the previous months weather and any interesting weather related events that have occurred or are likely to occur.

The editor of Events contacted me back in December and asked if I would write for the paper and it seems to have been well received. The next edition is out on the 6th or 7th April so have a look and I'd be please to hear any comments.

Winter Storm

Today we have had gusts up to 63 mph on the island and these strong winds are set to continue through the night and into Friday. The winds have dropped slightly but gusts of up to 50 mph can be expected over the region until at least lunchtime Friday.

Although some sleet and snow showers have been passing through today, there is no laying snow at lower levels at the moment.
Some parts of the Highlands have reported in excess of 40 cm of snow through Thursday and the weather system bring this snow doesn't look as if it's going to move away until Friday.

10 ferry routes that service the Inner and Outer Hebrides have been either cancelled or disrupted by the weather. For the latest updates go to the Calmac website.

Live Data Not Uploading

I'm sorry to say that there is an issue with the update of data on the website. Due to an FTP server issue with my hosting company, they have turned off all FTP uploads while they carry out some work on the server.
This means that there will be no updates while this work is on going and they estimate that they should have the serve back sometime overnight tonight or on Thursday morning.

Sorry about this but it is totally outwith my control.

Update:
The serve host now has the FTP sorted and we're back to normal.