Weather watching

Curious about how hot it is or how or much rain has not fallen in Laguna — or whether those clouds on the horizon are going to ruin your day at the beach? Check it out on the city’s website.

City Network Administrator Chris Kreymann recently installed “Weather Watch” on the website in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service in San Diego.

The weather page is a user-friendly read-out from sensors installed at City Hall and Top of the World.

“This replaces an antiquated set of sensors that routed to a database that no one could access, which is why everyone called me,” said Kreymann, who has unofficially tracked weather in town for almost 20 years.

“The website is now the official source of weather information for Laguna Beach, and it is available to whoever wants to take a look.”

Before the obsolete sensors and until fairly recently, rainfall was gauged by poking a stick into a bucket on the City Hall roof and measuring it with a ruler, according to Kreymann. One inch of water, one inch of rainfall recorded.

“That was the weather-service-approved method,” Kreymann said.

The new website is crammed with weather information, but it was also designed to be a pleasure for users to visit.

Kreymann used a sophisticated black background with blue and white lettering for the photograph and charts that are in constant flux.

“It really makes it pop,” Kreymann said.

The photograph at the top of the page is a video snapshot that looks toward the ocean in the direction from which most storm fronts extend into Southern California. Sunrise and sunset times are also right up there.

Charts give measurements of temperature, humidity, wind, wind direction, wind gusts, barometer, trend, rain and one hour-rainfall for Right Now, Today, This Month and This Year.

Current or Right Now readings are updated every 60 seconds. The readings are automatically transferred into a computer, but there might be a lag of as much as two minutes before they show up on the website.

The monthly chart reflects the current calendar year. The annual total rainfall is based on the rainy season starting July 1 of each year.

Twenty-four-hour measurements begin at 4 p.m. daily.

The city and the National Weather Service agreed on the timing several decades ago and data has been collected since 1928 using that interval. It was kept in the new system to preserve the integrity and value of the data.

“The [Weather Watch] information may differ from other sources,” Kreymann said. “A passing thunderstorm can produce dramatic differences within a few hundred yards.”

Measurements taken at Top of the World and City Hall are separated by two miles and almost 1,000 feet in elevation.

“The whole point is that weather is not uniform,” Kreymann said.

To view the page, visit www.lagunabeachcity.net and click on Weather Watch or go straight to www.lagunabeachweather.net.