The right temp and humidity: Fog, mist and hoar frost

[AcWxRadar]

Having trouble with my satellite (not my TV, but my WildBlue internet).

We had 34-36 inches of snow within the last month and now the temperature is evaporating it all so it has been like living in a cloud every day and night for more than a week. Very low visibility and somewhat icy at times.

I think with all this moisture, it is wreaking havoc with my WildBlue internet TRIA. The receive signal keeps dropping out. I think the moisute is invading my TRIA. Not too much of a problem with my sat TV (some weak signals here and there and a couple of dropouts), but with the internet, I have to reset it all to re-acquire my connection if it drops out. This is kind of a pain.

I may have to take my TRIA off the dish and bring it into the house to warm it up and dry it out really good. That is my suspicion now. I thought at first that it was my router failing, but after a bit of troubleshooting and experimentation, the problem seems to be outdoors.

Thought I would post a few morning pictures. It is like this all day and night.

RADAR

 

[turbosat]

Looks like the North Pole, Radar! No wonder things aren't working properly. I had that Direcway internet for about 3 years, until DSL finally branched out. Mine worked surprisingly well, very few times did I lose it in heavy rain, and usually not for very long. But I never had those kind of weather conditions to try it in. We're back in the low 60's this week after our little brief sub-freezing blast.

 

[Cham]

Been very humid and foggy here too, causing problems with my internet connection as well. I am thinking of stringing an extension cord with a car warmer or hair dryer just to heat up the assembly a few degrees so moisture can evaporate. I would think the internal transceiver would give off enough heat to keep this from happening... Certainly some strange weather.

Here's my dish and antenna array.. (attached).
-C.

Sun just came out and is melting the ice... Mother Nature is saving me some trouble. Hope conditions improve for you too Radar!

An hour later and its snowing cats and dogs..

 

[B.J.]

Having trouble with my satellite (not my TV, but my WildBlue internet).

.....
I think with all this moisture, it is wreaking havoc with my WildBlue internet TRIA. ....

I used to have the symptoms you mentioned all the time, even a heavy fog would knock us off. Anyway I made two changes, and it doesn't do that anymore, and we're only rarely down.

The two changes were (1) we started using the WildBlue proxy, and (2) we replaced our Netgear router with a Lynksys router. Of the 2, I think the change of router was most important, because most of the time when I was having problems, and I'd go to reset the WildBlue, the little lights on the modem would be saying that we were connected, even though we couldn't get through to the internet. I think that the Netgear router just had a tendency to occasionally lose connection and kind of forget what it was doing, and wasn't re-acquirring a connection as it should. I've read complaints on the internet about other people having problems with Netgear routers and satellite internet.

Anyway, if you happen to be using a Netgear router, I'd highly suspect that might be your problem. Mine worked fine most of the time, but for some reason, would go beserk whenever the weather would cause a few temporary outages. The Lynksys recovers quickly, and I haven't had to re-cycle the Wildblue modem since we changed routers.

 

[AcWxRadar]

B.J.

I initially suspected that the problem might have been my router. Although I haven't had any trouble whatsoever with my Linksys WRT54G since I installed it in 2005 or 2006, some of the symptoms hinted at this.

I picked up a NetGear WNDR3300 dual band wireless N router and connected both this router and my Linksys WRT54G to my WildBlue modem via a NetGear GigaBit network switch (GS105NA).

Now I can evaluate the operation of both routers and connect to either one at will and instantly with either one of my two PCs (Laptop notebook or Desktop).

I have since found that both routers and both PCs are working properly, but still disconnecting from the internet. I was fortunate to "catch" the error when it occured and could detect that the "receive" LED on the modem had dropped out.

If I connect (hard-wired) directly to the modem, I still lose internet access. I checked my indoor coax cable connections at the modem, and they are fine. So I am left with three possibilities: 1] Modem 2] TRIA 3] The external cable connections at the TRIA.

Because of the current weather conditions here, I would suspect the outdoor cable connections or the TRIA moreso than the modem. Still, the Modem is old and was already used when I connected it, so I haven't ruled it out yet.

No piece of equipment can ever be truly and perfectly sealed, but since I know that I took extra precautions to seal the TRIA itself from the elements, I am leaning towards the outdoor cable connections first.

I find that there is no snow or ice on the dish itself. Probably because of the dark colored paint which absorbs what little sunlight there is and keeps it melted clean - (at least during the daylight hours). So the dish itself is OK and there are no LOS obstructions other than the humidity in the air.

The weather has now changed, instead of mist and fog, we have rain, rain and rain! Doggone weather. If we could get a couple of days (when I don't have to work) where the sun would come back out and help dry things out a little, that would sure be nice. Then, I would be more inclined to get outside at the dish and take a closer look at things.

RADAR

 

[walrus1957]

AcWxRadar-

Just thought I would correct your initial statement of 34-36 inches of snow. Saw the posting from NOAA earlier this week that Valley Nebraska reporting station has recorded over 44.4 inches of snow the past 6 weeks. You are only 10 miles north of Valley and I am about 20 miles west, so your initial estimate is a little low!

You have to love the hoar frost tonight! Took the wife to Epply in Omaha for her flight out to California, the freezing rain and now super hoar frost is taking trees down everywhere! Was held in traffic for all the tree crews out clearing the highway, there wasn't that much freezing rain- so the first for me to see whole trees toppled by frost. Looked like the crowns of all the trees had 6 inch balls of frost around every twig!

Whish I had a pictures to post!

 

[AcWxRadar]

Hi Ya Wally!

I know that you are correct on the issue of total snowfall. I wansn't counting everything (every snow). If we do that, then we have to also add the 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches that we also got in the beggining of October as well, that puts us at ~48 inches for the total season so far (2009/2010). But, that was almost all melted away before the blizzard hit and I didn't count any of the 0.1 or 0.2 inch recordings in between. I just counted the "big ones".

I just generalized the last two big storms and lumped them together. I didn't count every snowfall all the way.

RADAR

AcWxRadar-

Just thought I would correct your initial statement of 34-36 inches of snow. Saw the posting from NOAA earlier this week that Valley Nebraska reporting station has recorded over 44.4 inches of snow the past 6 weeks. You are only 10 miles north of Valley and I am about 20 miles west, so your initial estimate is a little low!

You have to love the hoar frost tonight! Took the wife to Epply in Omaha for her flight out to California, the freezing rain and now super hoar frost is taking trees down everywhere! Was held in traffic for all the tree crews out clearing the highway, there wasn't that much freezing rain- so the first for me to see whole trees toppled by frost. Looked like the crowns of all the trees had 6 inch balls of frost around every twig!

Whish I had a pictures to post!

 

[B.J.]

...
You have to love the hoar frost tonight! Took the wife to Epply in Omaha for her flight out to California, the freezing rain and now super hoar frost is taking trees down everywhere! Was held in traffic for all the tree crews out clearing the highway, there wasn't that much freezing rain- so the first for me to see whole trees toppled by frost. Looked like the crowns of all the trees had 6 inch balls of frost around every twig!
....

I think around here, rime ice is more common than hoar frost, but more common than both is just plain freezing rain.
But we get something that looks like the hoar frost, but instead of forming on objects above ground, it forms on the ground, and grows upward, like microcrystaline stalagmites. I've never heard of a name for these things, but they seem to form in areas where the water table is very close to the surface, and there is a lot of moisture in the ground, but the air above the ground is very cold, colder than the ground, and when the water vapor escapes from the ground, it crystalizes when it hits the cold air. These little crystal formations sometimes get like 6" tall, so thick that they pretty much cover the ground, and they sort of crunch when you walk on them. Pretty neat.

But around here, the thing that brings down trees is the freezing rain. Usually happens after an extended period of very cold weather, followed by a storm passing us a bit to the west, bringing warm rain up from the south. Usually it will stay right at the freezing point, sometimes for more than a whole day, while the rain instantly freezes as it hits trees, and builds up solid ice cubes on every twig, that can be more than an inch thick. We get these a lot, but the worst one was back somewhere around 1998 or so. The thing that impressed me, was not so much that they would bring whole trees down, but the speed at which limbs would come off big trees. After the ice storm hit, you'd hear what sounded like shotgun blasts going off in the woods, followed by a crash accompanied by an almost musical sound of all the little ice cubes bouncing around. It was big branches snapping off the trees. The thing is that it would just be SNAP and freefall, not a slow cracking sound associated with the branches breaking and bending and the split going parallel to the branch. These branches were so cold from the cold weather that they were brittle and snapped all at once and were free. They fell horizontally, not twig end first.
The dangerous thing about that, was that normally if a limb breaks, you have time to run away, these things snapped, and it was like 2 seconds and they were down. I went out for a walk, and when a couple of these monster limbs came down near me, SNAP-CRASH, I quickly decided that I was going back inside where it was safe.
Usually, the trees aren't quite so frozen, and just bend over to the ground and split, but this one bad year, we had sub-zero weather for about a week, then a day of heavy freezing rain, followed by sub zero weather again, so the tree limbs were completely frozen and brittle. It was really wierd living here in the woods, with no power (for 8 days), so it was real quiet, except for the sound of these tree limbs coming down every few minutes. I think the storm that hit us here, went up into Canada, and they got it even worse, since it brought down their big high voltage power lines.
Sorry this got off topic, but the talk of ice always gets me going. I don't mind a 2' snowfall, but when I hear that potential freezing rain is coming, it really get's my attention. I also like to keep an eye on the temperatures at Mt Washington, NH near here. When the temp up at the top of the mountain is warm, and it's cold down where we live, and rain is forecast, usually there is trouble coming.

 

[AcWxRadar]

I think around here, rime ice is more common than hoar frost, but more common than both is just plain freezing rain.
But we get something that looks like the hoar frost, but instead of forming on objects above ground, it forms on the ground, and grows upward, like microcrystaline stalagmites. I've never heard of a name for these things, but they seem to form in areas where the water table is very close to the surface, and there is a lot of moisture in the ground, but the air above the ground is very cold, colder than the ground, and when the water vapor escapes from the ground, it crystalizes when it hits the cold air. These little crystal formations sometimes get like 6" tall, so thick that they pretty much cover the ground, and they sort of crunch when you walk on them. Pretty neat.

B.J.

There is a very subtle difference between hoar frost and rime ice. Rime ice is categaroized into two groups, soft rime and hard rime.

If I get the gist of the descriptions correctly, hoar frost forms on tree limbs and wires when there is fog and the air temp is near or below freezing. Soft rime forms when there is misty (light water droplets or wet fog) conditions at or near freezing and hard rime is more towards freezing rain, but not quite that bad.

The way the frost or ice appears after it forms indicates what type of frost or rime it is. Hoar frost will appear light and feathery and grow outwards like a leaf or a fern. Soft rime is more dense and harder and hard rime is even more dense and holds closer to the object to which it is attached. Clear ice is the worst and forms when steady rain freezes directly on the limbs forming solid ice like an icecube, but very clear.

That frost that you describe that grows close to the ground sounds like what they call "frost flowers".

They have names for everything, it seems. It is all based upon where it forms, the temperature and humidity during its formation and what it appears like after it forms.

Hoar frost, soft rime and frost flowers are pretty and cause no damage. Hard rime and clear ice kills trees and really makes a mess!

Yesterday, it rained quite a bit and we got clear ice. I took some pictures, not too much damage, but I still have some mess to clean up. The power here is dropping out because of this ice. I am waiting for OPPD to answer their phone so I can tell them to get prepared.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Ooops, forgot the pictures.

 

[arcticracer]

Hoar Frost-Interesting Backdrop

Here are a couple pics I took in Ft. Yukon, Alaska in the 90's of the abandoned White Alice Communications System antennas before they were torn down. The system was built during the Cold War in the mid-late 50's to provide communications to the Dewline and BMEWS sites.

There is info online about White Alice (WACS) if you are interested in knowing more.