Kevin C. Krinke:
I've also been struggling to find a way to confirm that the node is working properly. […] Is there a way, aside from the weather service, to know immediately that the service is correctly functioning?
You can use Atlas [1] and search for your relay fingerprint.
I also wrote a little script called check_tor.py [2] that is meant for Nagios but which can be used independently to ensure that a relay is properly running.
[1] https://atlas.torproject.org/ [2] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=users/lunar/check_tor.git