Weather Sensing

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Solutions

Davis - Vantage Pro2

Vantage Pro2 weather stations for monitoring barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, rainfall, and wind speed and direction.

Davis weather stations feature state-of-the-art technology at affordable prices. Used by thousands of schools, colleges, and universities throughout the world, they're also used in agriculture, industry, and research, and by homeowners, expeditions, storm chasers, and government agencies.

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/products/vantage2.asp

Online resources:

• Serial protocol specification
  • http://www.davisnet.com/support/weather/software.asp#vantagecomm
• Available from:
  • http://www.meteorologica.co.uk/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=84&numRecordPosition=6&ph=&strKeywords=&&strSearchCriteria=

Froggy Home

A sensors set including an accurate barometer, thermometer, hygrometer and data logger.

Barometer : Atmospheric pressure, especially pressure trends, allow weather forecasting for 12 to 48 hours ahead. But what is atmospheric pressure? We are not aware of it because we live in it, but the air we breathe is a gas under pressure, under strong pressure: 10 tons per square metre! Incredible isn’t it! This force is used, for example, to pack down earth at a building site.

A plastic membrane is spread on the ground, the perimeter is buried so that air cannot pass underneath it, and a vacuum is made under the cloth, so that the air above it presses down uniformly at the rate of 1kg per square centimetre, that is 10 tons per square metre, that is 1000 tons for a site of 100 square metres. Amazing isn’t it! All that with a membrane which weighs a few kilos. And how does the weather come into that? If for one reason or another there is a place on the planet where the pressure is lower, this gives rise to winds which are likely to bring clouds which will lead to rain. That is why we say that when the pressure drops the weather will be bad. (With a vacuum cleaner you create a depression, which gives rise to a wind which sucks in dust.) The more rapidly the pressure drops the more violent the winds will be. When the pressure rises there is a good chance that fine weather will return. But then the sensor to measure pressure should be outside the house? Well, no, because a house isn’t completely airtight - (fortunately otherwise the window panes wouldn’t stand up to changes in pressure) - with the result that the pressure inside a building is exactly the same as outside. The sensor situated inside serves to forecast the weather, like Grandfather’s barometer. With the pressure curves on the graphs it is even easier to see trends. Another thing, we are accustomed to talking about atmospheric pressure related to sea level, as pressure varies a lot with altitude, in order to make comparisons it is essential to set up the correct parameters in the software and to indicate precisely the altitude of your property.

Hygrometer : Measurement of Relative Humidity. It is an important part of our environment, a humidity level of 40 to 50% is necessary for good health. But what is the humidity level or relative humidity? It is the percentage of water that the air contains in relation to its capacity before saturation. 50% relative humidity means that the air could contain as much water again before it starts to condense. The capacity of air to hold water is very largely linked to temperature. Warm air holds a lot more water than cold air. (That’s why a tumble drier uses warm air to dry the clothes). In winter the outside air doesn’t contain a lot of water. When this air comes inside it conserves the same quantity of water but as it warms up it becomes relatively drier, it could contain a lot more water. Breathing air which is too dry causes a risk of sore throat. In winter the advice is to humidify the air in living spaces either with green plants or with air humidifiers. FroggyHome^? products enable you to check the level of the relative humidity of the inside air. Another thing - the sensors are so sensitive that the graphs show very precisely when there is a change of human activity in the room. (Humans breathe out water vapour.) Do some physical exercise in the same room as Rita and you will see the humidity level go up very noticeably. After a shower, opening the bathroom door enables air from that room to mix with the atmosphere in the rest of the house, Rita will detect this change in humidity, the same in the kitchen. xxxx knows what time his wife got up last Sunday! It’s up to you to use this information with care, FroggyHome^? declines all responsibility on this subject.....

from: http://www.froggyhome.com

METEO-2

METEO-2 is designed to measure turbulent scintillations of the air temperature and three orthogonal wind velocity components, mean air temperature, wind speed and direction, as well as mean atmospheric pressure and relative humidity of air in the surface atmosphere. The main advantages of METEO-2 are small size, well-developed software, 24-hour unattended operation.

• http://www.iao.ru/en/resources/equip/dev/meteo2/

Station Point X

Hardware needed to build a radio weather station

The program StationPointX^? for the Mac OS X platform fully implements the open communication protocol of the PC-Weather Sensor Receiver sold by the German company ELV Elektronik AG. The Weather Sensor Receiver (PC interface) can be connected to any Apple Macintosh computer through the serial RS-232 interface. For newer Macs with no integrated RS-232 interface external USB to serial converters may be used instead. This allows you to easily build a compete weather station on your Mac.

from: http://www.gaudi.ch/StationPointX/hardware_e.html

WS-1

The WS-1 is a inexpensive weather instrument that measures temperature, wind speed, and wind direction.

• http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/ibutton/weather/

TINI Weather Server

TINI is Dalsemi's cool Tiny InterNet^? Interface, the size of a computer memory module. It contains serial ports, 1-wire ports, CANBUS ports, a parallel output and most importantly, Ethernet. It is programmed using Java. More details on TINI can be found at the TINI Web Site.

TINI Weather Server is Java program that collects weather data with a WS-1 and other 1-wire sensors and serves up a web page. The Oro Valley Weather Server is presently running on TINI.

New! Version 3.6.1 adds several new features including emailing of Logs. Read the Latest Users Guide Download the TiniWeatherServer^? package for Tini OS 1.14 and 1.02g

Where's the Source Code? The java source files for TINIWeatherServer^? is curently available for non-commercial use at no charge via request by email to:tim@timbitson.com.

Online resources

• http://www.worldweather.org/
  • http://www.worldweather.org/010/c00039.htm (for Leeds)
  • The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), of which 185* States and Territories are Members, is a specialized agency of the United Nations.
• http://www.metoffice.com
  • http://www.metoffice.com/wfc/index.html
  • We are one of the world's leading providers of environmental and weather-related services. Our solutions and services meet the needs of many communities of interest... from the general public, government and schools, through broadcasters and online media, to civil aviation and almost every other industry sector - in the UK and around the world.
• http://www.rssweather.com/

• This script contacts the US National Weather Service and downloads METAR aviation weather information and generates a handy set of graphs.
  • https://xdv.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/OSC_sniff/weather2OSC.pl?rev=1.6&view=auto

• http://homepage.mac.com/tbitson/weather/index.html

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Other projects about the weather/weather sensing

Weather Works

Atmospherics/Weather Works is a performance, installation, and distributed software project for the sonification of storms (cyclones, for example) and other meteorological events generated directly from data produced by a highly detailed and physically accurate simulation of the weather.

• http://www.andreapolli.com/studio/atmospherics/

Tangible Weather Channel

Tangible Weather Channel is a sculptural apparatus that enables the participant to input the remote location of a loved one and interprets its real-time weather information as a way of creating an emotional connection. Rather than employing traditional graphical representation, Tangible Weather Channel renders weather information into a multi-sensory experience by using natural elements such as water, air and sound. By materializing weather dynamics on intimate sites to mediate what occurs in another place, Tangible Weather Channel encourages the participant to establish links with his/her experiential memories of a specific place and to create a sense of closeness to via touch and contemplation.

http://mixav.net/works/TangiWeaCh/

Weather Songs - Can You Hear Me Now?

a collection of musical audio pieces, accompanied by various animated graphics, which are based on 'sonified weather patterns'. four daily weather elements (barometric pressure, high temperature, minutes of sunshine & daily precipitation) over the span of about five years (about 1,800 days) are mapped to specific notes & played by various musical instruments speeded up 675,000 times (or about 1,800 days in 4 minutes). the higher the pitch, the more of the element (e.g. higher temperature or more precipitation) there is. even though the initial intent was to simply hear weather patterns, not to create music, the results are surprisingly musical & have been reviewed & played on radio.

• http://tomdukich.com/weather%20songs.html