Saskatchewan residents love to discuss the weather.

It’s an interest that is shared by every resident, and it's a topic everyone has an opinion about.
We talk about weather on coffee-row with friends or with complete strangers we meet on the street.
It’s a great ice-breaker, you might say.
But Shaunavon resident Grant Glover has taken that interest further than most people.
Four years ago, in the fall of 2006, the SaskEnergy worker acquired his very own weather station that he then assembled in his backyard.
The advanced technology included state of the art equipment, along with computer and software merchandise, that enabled the fledging meteorologist to bring the collected data to the internet.
Today, Shaunavon residents can access that information by visiting “Grant’s Backyard” web site at www.shaunavonweather.ca
How exactly did he get involved with the unusual hobby?
“Well, I love my gadgets,” laughed Glover.  “But I guess I’ve always been fascinated with weather.”
“I’ve always loved data and trivia, and things like that, and my hope was to have something out there for others to enjoy, too.”
When he moved to Shaunavon from Regina, Glover, a self-proclaimed weather addict, says he missed the easy accessibility of getting up-to-date weather information available in larger centres.
So he decided to take things into his own hands.
His first attempt - purchasing an inexpensive weather unit from a Canadian Tire outlet - proved to be a disappointment.
Not long after that first disaster, Glover started searching the internet and eventually came across and purchased an item on ebay that proved to be a perfect fit.
Although Glover was able to get his new system up and operational almost immediately, getting the information onto the internet was a more complicated task that took almost two more years to complete.
“I’ve had a lot of fun with this, but it was frustrating at the beginning,” said Glover of his computer woes. “There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I first started and I had to work through those problems. I definitely learned from my mistakes.”
Still, Glover had his project available to web users by the fall of ’08.
Since then, the virtual weather station has been getting regular hits from a number of people, mostly friends and acquaintances.
But those numbers could increase in the coming weeks and months, because Glover only recently started telling people about the web site.
“I didn’t really want to tell anyone until I was sure it would work,” he said. “I didn’t want them to go to the web site and say ‘what’s this?’”
While “Grant’s Backyard” page may suggest something trivial, the site is anything but a haphazard collection of material.
 In fact, it offers what is probably the most extensive, reliable and current weather information service available to local residents.
The site even provides better than up-to-the minute reports as information is uploaded to the virtual weather station every 2.5 seconds.
The web page covers every type of data imaginable, from temperature and humidity to wind chill factors and barometric pressures.
 “If there is any type of weather that can be measured, this thing can do it,” said Glover.
For instance, did you know that Shaunavon had exactly three days in 2009 where the temperature rose above 32 degrees Celsius and 209 days where the daily low temperature dipped below the freezing mark. There were 89 days that the maximum temp was 0 degrees Celsius or less and 47 days where the daily low temperture was below -18 degrees Celsius.
The hottest day of the year actually occurred in September and there were only three or four days during the whole year where conditions were so calm that Glover’s wind gauge barely registered a measurement.
Glover admits he could probably devote a whole page just to wind conditions alone.
“The wind isn’t as consistent as you might think it is - it’s always changing,” he said.
“I was also surprised to find out that our summers weren’t as windy as I thought,” he added. “We actually get stronger and more consistent winds in the winter.”
He has a wind gauge that sits on a pole 35 feet in the air, almost completely unaffected by nearby buildings and trees.
Right now, there are two separate units - the wind guage which sits on the pole, and the main station which collects data from another area in his backyard.
“Where you place the sensors is very important,” stated Glover. “One of the hardest things I found was trying to find a place for the sensors in order to make sure the measurements were accurate.”
Information from the sensors are then transferred to a data blogger device installed in his living room before being uploaded, stored and recorded on a home computer soley dedicated to his weather system.  
Most of that information is then made available to anyone who visits the web site. The whole process takes just a few milliseconds to complete.
Glover monitors the equipment every morning to make sure it is working, but for the most part it operates on its own without any undue attention or effort.
Although costly to purchase - Glover admits his hobby, like those of many other people, can be expensive - the unit is not costly to operate.
Running on solar power, Glover says it was two and half years before had to replace the tiny 3-volt battery that runs the equipment.
The equipment is considered extremely accurate, with a range of error between one or two per cent. To put that in perspective, it would be within one or two hundreds of an inch when measuring rainfall.
The weather station is certainly high tech and similar to one found at the Shaunavon airport, only this one is easy to access for any computer user.
Grant also has a unique piece of equipment that detects lightning. In fact, that particular device is considered an accurate detector of lightning within a 400 k.m. radius. He is one of only three people in Saskatchewan - and 15 across Canada - who have the special lightning sensors.
Two years ago, during a severe windstorm that passed through the Southwest, Grant’s sensors detected 30,000 lightning strikes.
“It was so intense that it basically fried my computer,” he said
Right now, however, he has yet to make the lightning service available on his web page.
“I haven’t even scratched the surface of the weather information that I could put on the web site,” said Glover.
Along with holding a personal fascination with weather, Glover hopes to make his virtual weather station a valuable service to area residents.
It could be an important source, for example, for people tracking storms or checking out lightning conditions before they go out for a round of golf.
“My hope is to have this here for a long time and that people can access any weather information they want, including past history,” said Glover.  
“I want people to use the web site for information about the weather - and maybe provide some warnings if there is a storm in the area,” he added. “But I don’t want people to base their weekend plans around my weather site.  Because if there is anything I have learned since doing this, it’s that weather is very unpredictable.”