The Official FAQ for Hampton, Iowa Weather
Everything you wanted to know about this website...and tons of things you probably didn't care to know!

Q: Why are you pulling the plug on your weather station in early July?
A: After calling Hampton home for nearly 12 years, I have decided to move back to the Quad Cities, where I've lived for many years.  The weather station and all my computers used to publish the website are coming with me, so unfortunately I'll be unable to provide current weather conditions and webcam images from Hampton.

Q: When was the site established?
A: Officially, I began full operations on March 1st, 2005.  However, in late February 2005 I was testing out the weather station's connection to the Internet, so live data was first made available then.  The site was originally located at http://mfrerkes.home.mchsi.com, but was moved on April 12, 2005 to it's present URL.  I have two mirror sites located at Tripod and Geocities.

Q: Where is the exact location of you weather station within Hampton?
A:  My registered location with the Citizen's Weather Observer Program (CWOP) is 42° 44' 33" N latitude and 93° 12' 10" W longitude.   The station is situated just northwest of the US-65 and Iowa Highway 3 intersection, and is four blocks east of downtown Hampton.  Elevation for this site is 1,142 feet above sea level.  For more information about the city of Hampton, there are a couple of good resources on the web: Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Wikipedia Entry for Hampton, Iowa.

Q: What equipment do you use?
A: The weather station is a LaCrosse WS-2310TWC.  It is currently operating on a cabled connection that refreshes data every eight seconds.  The computer which uploads the weather observations and Highway 3 webcam image is a Compaq Presario 2100-US.  It runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on a Mediacom cable modem connection.  Another computer (an Acer Travelmate 290) publishes the mobile webcam image.  Image uploads from webcam #3 are handled by a third computer (an HP Pavilion 9800).  The general HTML publishing for this site, including the archive, is handled by a fourth computer (an HP Pavilion dv8235nr).  All four computers are networked via the Linksys router in my living room.

Q: What software do you use?
A: In order to read data from the base unit, I run HeavyWeather 2.0 which is LaCrosse's proprietary software for the WS-2310.  HeavyWeather Publisher generates the current weather graphic while both webcam images are processed by WheresJames Webcam Publisher 2.0.  Uploads to CWOP, Weather Underground, and AWEKAS are handled by WUHU version 198.  As far as HTML publishing is concerned, I use both Microsoft Front Page 2003 and Excel to create the daily weather logs.

Q: How often is new data uploaded?
A: Observations are uploaded every minute to http://hamptonweather.home.mchsi.com and every five minutes to the CWOP, Weather Underground, and AWEKAS servers.  The webcams are programmed to update every minute.  The four computers used to manage this website perform an average of over 6,000 upload operations every day.

Q: Why did you create this website?
A: This is nothing more than a hobby to me.  The weather in Iowa is always changing, and it's fun keeping track of those changes. Aside from the hobby aspect, I'm hopeful that visitors to my site will find this information useful and interesting.

Q: How many visitors hit your site each month?
A: It can vary somewhat, but lately I've been registering between 700 and 800 unique visitors each month.  Some of them even send me e-mail.  I like hearing from my visitors, so if you care to drop me line, my address is mfrerkes@mchsi.com.

Q: I also have a LaCrosse personal weather station. Can I join your web ring?
A: Yes.  I am the ring manager for the LaCrosse Weather Station web ring.  If you would like to join, simply click here.  I'm always looking for new members!

Q: Can I view your uploaded data on my mobile phone?
A: Yes, believe it or not, you can.  Just bookmark this URL on your WAP browser and you should be able to access current data from my weather station.  I have a WAP 2.0 browser on my mobile phone and it works great.

Q: When did you add the webcams?
A: The Hampton Weather Webcam began operating on April 20th, 2005.  At first, it featured a view looking west towards the Sietsema-Vogel funeral home parking lot.  Then in May, I relocated the webcam to face south towards Iowa Highway 3 and the Git N Go convenience store.  A second webcam was added to the site on July 12th, 2005 which features a northern view of US Highway 65.  The most recent addition to the webcam lineup was made on October 4th, 2005.  Like the second webcam, it faces north and overlooks the parking lot by Ron's Barber Shop.

Q: When did you begin distributing your data to other Internet weather sites?
A: I first joined Weather Underground on May 22nd, 2005.  A few days later, on May 25th, I became a member of the Citizen's Weather Observer Program, known as CWOP.  I began sending data to a third network, AWEKAS on February 14th, 2006.

Q: How accurate are your readings?
A: According to quality control checks performed daily on my uploaded data to CWOP, the 24-hour average temperature error is usually no more than one degree, which is highly accurate.

Q: Why do you no longer display barometer readings?
A: In mid-April of 2006 my barometer began malfunctioning and the readings were so inaccurate, I was forced to remove them from the current weather graphic.  I was able to partially fix the problem, however the current barometer readings are only available through my data which is uploaded to Weather Underground and CWOP.  Due to the nature of this problem, I am currently unable to display the current barometer readings on this website.

Q: I attempted to view your current conditions/webcam image, but the timestamp was old and wouldn't update when I hit the refresh button.
A: Unfortunately, I don't have a full-time staff to maintain the equipment and software used to create this website.  On occasion, my internet connection will drop or the computer which uploads weather data will suddenly crash.  This usually seems to happen when I'm at work or out of town for several days.  If there is no current data available, this likely is the cause.   When this happens, just keep checking back--I'll eventually get the thing up and running again.

Q: I couldn't locate any monthly precipitation totals on your website.  Do you keep track of those?
A: Precipitation totals for each month can be found in the archive section under the link entitled "summary".

Q: Do you archive observations from previous days?
A: Yes.  You can access daily weather logs from the past six months in the archive section located on this website.  To view weather logs older than six months, visit  http://hamptonweatherarchive.home.mchsi.com.  You can also obtain my daily weather observations from Weather Underground.  These are more detailed, but there are no records available before May 23rd, 2005...the date I began uploading data to their website.

Q: Do you archive the webcam images?
A: No.  The amount of hosting space required for that function is far greater than what I have available.

Q: Are there any other online weather stations in Franklin County?
A: There are two others that I'm aware of.  The first one is located at Southside Elementary School in Hampton.  This station is an AWS Weatherbug member.  The other is located at CAL School in Latimer and is part of KCCI-TV's School Net 8.  However, I've noticed both stations are frequently off-line...in many cases for weeks at a time.

Q: What does your weather station look like?
A:
 
Rain gauge and hygrometer-temp sensor housing unit (left), anemometer (center), and base station (right).
Thanks to Franklin County Lumber in Hampton for donating some of the material
used in constructing the housing unit.