Realign the vane
No reason to take it personally. After all, who can see the wind? But when my refreshed weather data site showed the prevailing breeze as coming from a different direction than the official (expensive) government observation site just a few kilometers away, I had to try and realign my personal compass.
No matter, that we were hours past midnight. The very idea that the wind report was at variance had me wide awake. Particularly since I knew why (maybe). Last fall, while packing the anemometer away in its suitcase, a certain moment of disregard for a tiny note in the owners’ manual: “aligned at the factory” found me with too many separate pieces. Oops.
Reattaching the vane was not enough. I now had to perform a realignment, as described in the manual. There were two rational choices. I could wait for daylight, mount the ladder, swing the whole assembly around on the mast to a correct position, OR the software correction could be applied… in the middle of the night.
The math involved was simple. Subtract the observed number of compass degrees from the reported (Environment Canada) reading. Push a whole series of buttons, in the ordained sequence, on the console. Test.
And it worked! Until the next console reset, my station wind report is deemed to be sufficiently accurate for day to day living. I can fly a kite, or watch for errant balloons, or simply cross my arms, confident that my state of the art station delivers state of the art data to anyone who cares about things they cannot see.
