Personal Weather Stations Helping With Weather Forecasting

Weather Storm writes "Weather information from thousands of personal weather stations are being used for weather forecasting by several private and government agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Citizens Weather Observation Program (CWOP) was created by a few amateur radio operators experimenting with transmitting weather data with packet radios, but it has expanded to include Internet-only weather stations as well. As of September 2007, nearly 5,000 stations worldwide reported weather data regularly to CWOP's FindU database. The weather data is forwarded every 15 minutes to NOAA's Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS), checked for temporary and spatial consistency, than utilized by computer forecast models and internal forecast verification programs. In a Febuary 2007 report (PDF) DHS listed CWOP as a national assets to the 'BioWatch' Network, stating that data from personal weather stations could be useful in weather forecasts for hazardous releases. In 2007, the FindU server received 422,262,687 weather reports which is a 29.5% increase over 2006." The personal weather stations certainly come in stylish shapes.

Comments

Davis WS

[Vskye]

Minus all the dumb ass comment's, I've ran a cheaper weather station, and placement is key. (reflective sun, etc) But my friend has a nice Davis weather station (wired varmit) that works just great. They also have Wireless versions available. (disclaimer .. no ties to the company, etc..) As far as software goes, Linux versions are available, although running Windows software via a VM works.

Re:Installation Guidelines?

[flyingfsck]

People that participate are usually very clued up about the weather systems: Pilots, small airports, farmers and the like. They all have an interest in having accurate data.

Weather Underground and Google Maps

[phorest]

If you've never seen it, Weather Underground uses Google Maps and overlays all the personal weather stations (PWS)in an area view. They even have a published iGoogle gadget.

Re:Grants

[grumling]

They've become quite a bit cheaper over the years, and some of the newer wired sensors are very affordable: http://www.aagelectronica.com/. You don't need a display unit for the 1-wire sensors, just an open serial port. There is some free software available.

We don't need grants, just people willing to maintain a personal weather station and share data.

Now, I live in an area with a lot of federal land (a national park, forest and recreation area). It would be useful, since the ranger stations already are equipped with weather stations, if they could add their observations to the CWOP, or get them to NOAA somehow, but I'm sure that would require an act of congress, and be way over the top as far as cost/value of the info.