[ILUG] Remote weather station

[Frank Peelo]

Philip Trickett (List) wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 2009-11-27 at 13:18 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>> On Friday 27 November 2009 12:46:15 you wrote:
>>
>>>> Does anyone have experience of a weather station
>>>> sending back information over the internet,
>>>> preferably by WiFi but possible by USB connection
>>>> to a remote computer?
>>> There are a number of ways to do this, but wifi is out I'm afraid unless
>>> you have a dedicated linux box (this can be embedded).
>> Thanks very much for your response.
> 
> No Problem
>> I do actually have a Linux (CentOS) server at the remote site
>> which is currently running all the time
>> (with a not terribly good Linksys WVC54GCA camera attached).
>>
> OK then, if you have a spare serial or USB port you should be fine.
> 
>> But the ADSL modem there has WiFi connections
>> so it would be better, probably, to link directly that way,
>> if that were possible,
>>
>>> THe easiest way is probably to go for a Davis weather station, and there
>>> is an article here that details using a Vantage pro:
>>>
>>> http://www.joejaworski.com/weather/
>>>
>>> Other than that, the Davis site is here:
>>>
>>> http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/index.asp
>>>
>>> If you like soldering, and a bit of tweaking, you could try one of the
>>> weather stations here:
>>> http://www.wviewweather.com/
>> This looks nice, but I'm not sure if I understand the jargon ...
>>
> 
> 
>>> If you want precision, go for the Vaisala station, otherwise the Oregon
>>> Scientific stuff is not bad.
>> Most of the sites I googled at were using Oregon Scientific devices,
>> though I see your joejaworski site above says they are "crap".
>>
> Yeah, but it depends how accurately you want to monitor the weather.
> 
> This comes down to alot of things, basically, if you stick a weather
> station in your back garden at a height of 2 metres, then you are going
> to get turbulence and 'shadowing' effects from fences and you house.
> If you are mounting it on your roof, is it higher than your chimney, and
> if so, is it above you chimney and do regularly use your fireplace
> etc....

This sort of thing seems to be difficult for the "professionals" to get 
right, as well. Jeffery D. Kooistra's article in the November issue of 
Analog magazine mentions www.surfacestations.org, a site dedicated to 
determining the accuracy of surface temperature measurements in the US. 
He reckons that 61% of the United States Historical Climate Network 
sites have errors > 2 degrees C due to artificial heating sources <10 
meters. Kooistra wants to use this to say that the global warming debate 
is spurious, but after the floods I'd be inclined to think he's pushing 
a red herring.

Frank