Weather Station Equipment
The weather station is a Davis Wireless Vantage Pro2 Weather Station console receiver with a wireless connection to an integrated sensor suite.
The
sensor suite includes a weatherproof box, which protects the electronics and
battery. It also includes a solar panel
that recharges the battery, rain collector, temperature and humidity sensors
and an anemometer. The white louvered
shield at the bottom of the sensor package is designed to protect the
temperature and humidity sensors from direct sunlight, which would adversely
affect the sensors mounted inside.
Temperature data is transmitted to the console every 10 to 12
seconds. Humidity data is transmitted to
the console every 50 seconds to 1 minute.
The
rain collector consists of the black upper portion of the sensor suite which is
a funnel directing the rainwater into a tipping bucket. The tipping bucket is two buckets in a
‘see-saw’ configuration where each bucket will tip to empty when it is filled
with .01 inches of water. Each time the
tipping bucket tips to empty the rain collector will count that as .01 inches
of accumulated rain. The accumulated
rainfall is transmitted to the console every 10 to 12 seconds. The rain rate is transmitted to the console
every 10 to 12 seconds. During periods
of heavy rain, the status line of the console will display the message “It is
raining cats and dogs”; guess the programmers had a sense of humor!
The anemometer determines the wind speed, just above it is the wind
direction sensor. Wind information is
transmitted to the base station every 2.5 to 3 seconds. Due to the current mounting location of the
anemometer (on the building with the building blocking the south east, the lake
to the west and some trees to the north) there will be some discrepancies in
what is reported compared to actual wind speeds on the shore of the lake. Maybe someday I will get permission to mount
the sensor suite closer to the shore of the lake where it will have fewer
obstructions.
A separate weatherproof box with transmitter is mounted on the permanent dock (the one visible in the photo), a wired stainless steel temperature probe is connected to it and run along the bottom where it is tied to a brick on the bottom at a depth of about 2-3 feet (depending on lake level). Temperature is transmitted to the console every 15 seconds. This temperature probe will remain in place for the summer months to monitor and report the water temperature. For the winter, this waterproof box and temperature probe will be removed to protect it from damage caused by ice. For the late fall / winter / early spring months the water temperature will be removed from all pages visible on the public web page.
Weather Data Collection and Web Page Generator
The weather station console is connected to a Compaq notebook computer through a serial connection. The notebook computer has a wireless connection to a router, which is connected to a cable modem on the MetroCast cable network. The notebook computer is on 24 / 7 / 365 running Virtual Weather Station Internet v14.00. This software allows configuration of tasks to be performed on a specified schedule. The first scheduled task is to run every 5 minutes to copy collected data from the console to the notebook computer. Once the data is on the notebook, WeatherLink will create the graphs used on the “One Day Data” page of the web site. Each of the graphs are generated and stored on the notebook computer with the latest up to date information then the graphs are copied to the web page on a server. Another task is configured to run once each hour to update the graphs needed for the “One Week Data” web page and then copy those updated graphs to the server.
Web Cam Photo
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