Weather Station

The weather station is a Davis instruments Vantage PRO Plus, the Anemometer and weather vane are mounted approx 33'(10m), this is only about 8'(2.5m) above roof height. The data is collected by the Davis every 2.5 seconds, this data is stored internally (not needing a computer) and is downloaded by various programs every few minutes (5 at the moment). The Davis measures Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed, Direction, Rainfall, Atmospheric Pressure, Solar Radiation and Ultraviolet strength. Other values such as wind chill, heat index, are calculated either by the console or by VWS. The wind speed and direction sensors plug into the rain guage / temp /humidity sensor which is mounted at about 10'(3m) above ground level (temperature/humidity sensors are mounted in a screen to prevent the sun from giving a high reading), this Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) then transmits the readings back to the console.

The console is connected via a serial cable to a PC running Virtual Weather Station (VWS) software by Ambient Software for displaying on the computer and for producing the graphics for this web site. I also have the software update the Davis Weatherlink's database as this software is very good for producing graphs of various parameters. This all happens automatically - the graphics are produced every 10 minutes, copied to my web server directory locally for display on the weather station page, at the same time the NOAA reports are updated as needed and uploaded for viewing on this page. If the computer stops responding the Davis data logger built into the console will store about 8 days worth of data for download later.

The PC running VWS is a Celeron P4 1.7GHz, with 512Mb ram, 40Gb HDD, it is powered by a UPS. It is connected to the Internet via a 600Kbps Cable modem, this pc also is the gateway using an encrypted wireless network to other pc's in the house. This PC also runs ImageSalsa which provides the webcam pictures, this software has the ability to overlay images with dynamic text, and can also record when movement is detected. The gateway pc also runs various programs for interfacing to the Comfort home automation system. This allows for secure web access to the alarm system, and allows for remote monitoring of the pond (more details on the pond pages)

The above systems all function automatically, providing a constant stream of data to various weather data suppliers. VWS also sends its data to the Weather Underground service.

I also have another site, http://www.weatherstats.info, which uses a Macromedia Flash application called Weather Flash which provided live (updated every 5 seconds) weather data. This data is also forwarded to another site, The WX UK Weather Project http://www.wxuk.info which provides a graphical representation of multiple stations data.

 

A third site of http://www.peterboroughvws.info, is being developed and contains a realtime lightning detector and other Peterborough weather related information.







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Disclaimer
Never make important decisions based on this information or any weather information obtained from the Internet !

Copyright © 1999-2003 Martin Baines, Last Updated - 22/05/03 22:30:00