Great pictures. The sand seems to not bother them at all.
What's your Christmas weather forecast?
- Thread starter ZEROPILOT
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You usually ONLY find Florida Gopher tortoises in sandy areas.
Scrub brush areas with sun.
A balmy, overcast 63F (17C) here in Maryland. We really could use some rain as its been uncharacteristically dry for a good month.
UV index of 11? What are you measuring that with? Mid day summer sun here is UVI 7-8 with a Solarmeter 6.5. I've never seen 11.
TaylorTortoise
Well-Known Member
TheLastGreen
Well-Known Member
@Tom I use a weather app, the predicted UV was 8-10, but it reached 15. You can't be longer tham a few minutes outside or you'll get burnt
This must be a different scale than what we are using with our Solarmeter 6.5s.
@Markw84 can you shed some light?
Our UV index here on a dark, dreary Wintry Maryland day is just less than 3.0
uv.willyweather.com
The UV index
Glenn Dale UV Index, MD 20706 - WillyWeather
Glenn Dale UV Index updated daily. Detailed UV forecast charts, with today's UV radiation in real-time
uv.willyweather.com
The UV index
Really don't know. I do know my weather station here always shows a UVI way higher than my solarmeter reads. But that's a moderate priced home weather station. I wouldn't expect the "official" weather stations to give such a high UVI reading if they have state-of-art technology. The less expensive UVI readers do read all UV, including UVA - which is a much greater component of sunlight. Those types, typically read much higher than a solarmeter.
I just looked up mine on this same site. Willy weather. It says my high UVI today got up to 2.8 and that right now it is 1.8. The highest reading I can get on my Solarmeter 6.5 in full direct sun with the lens pointed right at the sun is a 1.0, and it took a bit of trying to aim it just right to get that. It was mostly 0.8 or 0.9.Our UV index here on a dark, dreary Wintry Maryland day is just less than 3.0
Glenn Dale UV Index, MD 20706 - WillyWeather
Glenn Dale UV Index updated daily. Detailed UV forecast charts, with today's UV radiation in real-time
The UV index
View attachment 338032
I then took the Solarmeter inside and put it under my Arcadia 12% HO bulb and I was able to get up to 5.2.
Just by dumb luck, the timer for my UV tube kicked off while I was sitting there trying to get this pic, and the meter immediately dropped to 0.0.
So Mark, and @Markw84 , do our 6.5 Solarmeters just give a particularly low reading? If yes, have we been exposing our tortoises to too much UV? My highest outdoor UV readings in direct sun mid day in summer are only 7.9-8.0 on my meter. But parts of South Africa are 13-15? That seems like our Solarmeters must be using some sort of different calibration or scale than the UVI readers being used by these sources. Which one is correct? Which one should we go by?
Sounds to me like someone who understands these things should contact the makers of the meter and ask to speak with their science guy.
Well... Ohio came close to breaking a record for the warmest Christmas on record but was one of the top five contenders. I had a pond in the back yard yesterday. If it was cold I can't imagine how deep the snow would have been ? what's the general rule 1 inch of rain to 10 inches of snow? Thank the good Lord we're only at the edge of the flood plane.
(play on words?)
Very enLIGHTening, isn't it.
I have talked to the guys at Solarmeter several times before. The difference is the algorithm to weight the reading to the erythemal UV, not the whole UV. In sunlight, there is a lot of UVA that is not in the erythemal action spectrum and that will give a much higher reading if there is not a filter to just read the UVB range we are interested in. That's one of the main reasons a solarmeter is much more expensive than other UVI readers you see marketed.
In coming up with the ferguson zones and the data used by Fracis Baines in all her reports, the solarmeter 6.5 was used. That is the standard used for all recommendations. She even just finished her "solstice day" where she asks everyone with a solarmeter 6.5 to take readings from wherever they are in the world on the winter solstice. She has a collection site for all the data and uses that to compare readings from around the world. She does the same thing for our summer soltice in June.
Trust the Solarmeter 6.5 reading. The other readings you will se can be all over the place. I even had them recalibrate my meter at Solarmeter a year ago or so - just to be sure what I'm seeing is correct. It came back matching all the reading I had been recording.
In coming up with the ferguson zones and the data used by Fracis Baines in all her reports, the solarmeter 6.5 was used. That is the standard used for all recommendations. She even just finished her "solstice day" where she asks everyone with a solarmeter 6.5 to take readings from wherever they are in the world on the winter solstice. She has a collection site for all the data and uses that to compare readings from around the world. She does the same thing for our summer soltice in June.
Trust the Solarmeter 6.5 reading. The other readings you will se can be all over the place. I even had them recalibrate my meter at Solarmeter a year ago or so - just to be sure what I'm seeing is correct. It came back matching all the reading I had been recording.
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Thank you for your thorough explanations about lighting products!
