I have always had a keen interest in meteorology but never had the time to really get into it because of my research work as a research psychologist and regulatory scientist. But now in retirement from Penn State and RIKI I do have the time to really begin to make a full excursion into it. So this blog post will be very different than all the previous 175 blog posts and I will introduce this new journey.

As many of you probably know, I am a real data geek. I have been since grad school when you begin to make the decision to go clinical or research in psychology. I have always loved numbers and working with data sets. So for me it was an easy choice. Recently, I had found that I wasn’t getting my data fix and being a data addict, I started to think more about meteorology and all the data that are present when you look at radar and weather charts. So I took the plunge and got my personal weather station (PWS). It is an Ambient Weather WS-2902-C WiFi OSPREY Solar Powered.

Here is a posting of my RIKIRJF Weather Station:

As you can see from the weather station name I have stuck with the RIKI label. Here are some other URLs that will take you to other weather related sites that you might be more familiar with:

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KPAELIZA118

https://www.pwsweather.com/station/pws/rikirjf

https://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=GW2138

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=G2138

I have fully engaged in my excursion in setting up my PWS, but also I am pursuing getting registered and certified as a mPing SkyWarn Spotter so that I can send actual observations of storm conditions in addition to the data that gets sent to the NWS: National Weather Service via their CWOP program from my PWS (GW2138; G2138).

I have also become a member and an associate with the Royal Meteorological Society and the American Meteorological Society to learn more of the science and to further my education and take courses.

https://www.rmets.org/ Royal Meteorological Society

https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/ American Meteorological Society

I have been so welcomed by the memberships of both societies and they have been so willing to share their knowledge with an amateur meteorologist. It has been a great deal of fun and very intellectually stimulating. It is not everyday when you can correspond with meteorologists from NOAA and NASA. I plan in future blog posts to share some of these conversations; but also check out my Facebook and Twitter sites where I will be posting as well.

Rick Fiene, RMetS Member: 59934; CWOFID: GW2138; MADISID: G2138. You can contact me at rfiene@rikinstitute.com (Email for RJFRIKI) or riki.institute@gmail.com (Institute email for RIKIAWS/RIKIRJF).