Mt Washington Wx CAM
About Me
We live about 2 miles northwest of Ellisville, Mississippi (EM51), in Jones County, or The Free State of Jones as it is known. We also have a farm and a house 8 miles north of Meadville, Mississippi (EM41). I have three main hobbies besides my grandchildren, Ham Radio (Amateur Radio), Astronomy, and Weather, which I will talk more about later on this page.
I am the head of the IT Department for a large poultry company based in Laurel, MS. We have over 15,000 employees in five states. I have been programming, managing networks and telecommunications since the early 70's.
I have been a Ham Radio Operator for most of my life. My Amateur Radio Callsign is N5PA. I mainly like Contesting and DXing. My favorite contests are CW and RTTY contests, but I will jump in on the Phone contests, also. As I get older I tend to like the shorter contests as it is hard for me to go for 48 hours straight. I have operated from several DXCC entities, with the most rare being Malawi as 7Q7PA. I have not been as active since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, I have a modest station at the house and a good DX and Contesting station at the farm.
I have been interested in astronomy my entire life. With the Sun having a major impact on radio propagation, it was a good segue from Amateur Radio to astronomy. You can visit my Astronomy pages on this site for further detail. I am a member of the Rainwater Astronomy Association at French Camp, MS and I enjoy going up there and taking a break from work. When I have time I assist with the monthly programs they have, mainly when it comes time to set up the scopes for observing. The Rainwater Observatory puts on the annual Mid-South Star Gaze each April and it is very educational and a lot of fun. I have a Celestron C-1100 CGEM, an Orion XT8 Dobsonian, and a Lunt Solar Telescope. We are going to build an observatory over at the farm and will probably end up with a rolling roof observatory. It will be nice to have the scopes set up permanently so that I will not have to spend all of that time setting up and taking them down. Our farm is in a very dark location and the closest town is 8 miles away and our closest neighbors are several miles away. You can walk outside and see the Milky Way at the farm.
On the weather front, we have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 Wireless weather station at home and at the farm. I have several more purchases to make before I retire. I am going to buy a lightning detector, probably one of the Boltek Lightning Detectors. I have purchased and installed the WXSIM weather forecasting software and the GR3Level Radar Mapping Software and have them integrated them into my web site. One of the things I am working towards right now is to get a weather cam set up for view on the internet. I am working on the cabling and power issues with getting that done. I have 90% Solar Screens on my house to keep the temperature down inside so I cannot mount the camera inside the window frame. The Solar Screens block the view and an inside camera is not even an option.
About Ellisville, Mississippi
Ellisville is a city in Jones County, Mississippi. The population was 3,892 at the time of the 2010 census.
The city is named for Powhatan Ellis, a former U.S. Senator for Mississippi and descendant of Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas. Ellisville was the major commercial and population center of Jones County until being supplanted by nearby Laurel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During the American Civil War, Ellisville and Jones County was a center of pro-Union resistance. Though there were many anti-secession movements and actions throughout the Confederacy, the "Free and Sovereign State of Jones" (or sometimes "Kingdom of Jones") had from the very beginning posed the most serious and persistent threat, and even went as far as drafting its own constitution. Note that the Sheriff Department's patrol cars have "The Free State of Jones" written on the side of the cars even today. Irregulars formed the Knight Company and were led by Captain Newton Knight, First Lieutenant Jasper Collins, and Second Lieutenant William Wesley Sumrall. Along with as many as 100 other southern men, they fought several skirmishes with Confederate units sent to crush the rebellion. Referenced in Ken Burns' monumental documentary The Civil War; Knight's rebellion was also dramatized in the 1948 motion picture Tap Roots (based on the book of the same name), where in a few exterior scenes there are prominent mountains in the background – which do not exist in Mississippi.
Ellisville is the home of South Jones Elementary, South Jones Middle School, South Jones High School, and Jones County Junior College which has an enrollment of 5,386 students. It is also the home for the headquarters of Howard Industries and Howard Technology. One of our new high-tech industries is PG Technologies LLC, a joint venture of Praxair and GE Aviation, a company that provides specialized coatings for GE Jet Engine components. They came to Ellisville because of its proximity to the University of Southern Mississippi and its world class Polymer Science School. They currently employ 100 people and will add 150 more people by 2020.
Here are some weather statistics about Ellisville, MS. Ellisville averages 57 inches of rain each year and an average annual snowfall of only one inch. The annual average maximum temperature is 76°F and an average annual minimum temperature of 52°F. The overall annual average temperature is 64.1°F. The Annual Heating Degree Days (HDD), which is the number of days it is below 65°F, is 2,444. The Annual Cooling Degree Days (CDD), which is the number of days it is above 65°F, is 2138. HDD is a form of Degree Day used to estimate energy requirements for heating. Typically, heating degree days are calculated as how much colder the mean temperature at a location is than 65°F on a given day. For example, if a location experiences a mean temperature of 55°F on a certain day, there were 10 HDD that day because 65 - 55 = 10, according to the National Weather Service. CDD is a form of Degree Day used to estimate energy requirements for air conditioning or refrigeration. Typically, cooling degree days are calculated as how much warmer the mean temperature at a location is than 65°F on a given day. For example, if a location experiences a mean temperature of 75°F on a certain day, there were 10 CDD that day because 75 - 65 = 10, according to the National Weather Service.
About My Weather Station
The station is powered by a Davis Vantage Pro 2 Wireless weather station with a Solar Powered Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS). The data is collected every 5 seconds and the website is updated every 5 minutes. This site and its data is collected using Cumulus Software. The station is comprised of an Anemometer for wind speed and direction, a Barometer, a new AeroCone Rain Collector, a Solar Sensor, a UV Sensor, and a Temperature/Relative Humidity Sensor situated in optimal positions for highest accuracy possible.
About This Website
This site is a template design by CarterLake.org with PHP conversion by Saratoga-Weather.org.
Special thanks go to Kevin Reed at TNET Weather for his work on the original Carterlake templates, and his design for the common website PHP management.
Special thanks to Mike Challis of Long Beach WA for his wind-rose generator, Theme Switcher and CSS styling help with these templates.
Special thanks go to Ken True of Saratoga-Weather.org for the AJAX conditions display, dashboard and integration of the TNET Weather common PHP site design for this site.
Template is originally based on Designs by Haran.
This template is XHTML 1.0 compliant. Validate the XHTML and CSS of this page.
I have added my ham radio, astronomy, and other weather related sites and code, myself. I will continue to update the site and if you see an issue or something that I might add to the site, please click the "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page to let me know.
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