|
|
Post by Babu on Jun 25, 2021 5:23:11 GMT -5
There are a lot of weather station threads, but all of them are very specific, like posting images of your own weather station, weather stations on top of rooftops, unrepresentative weather station, where you would like a weather station to be placed etc. There's no thread for discussing general weather station placements, types of weather stations, comparisons between stations close to eachother, general assessments of the quality of weather stations, exact locations for well-known weather stations etc. So I figured I'd create a thread for that. I'm very confused by the Lund weather station. The official coordinates point to the fire station in the very outskirts of the city, and on Bing maps there are drone shots for most towns and cities (very useful for scouting for weather station locations), and on their drone shots you can clearly see a Stephenson screen in a very botevy location. I don't know which exact date this shot was taken, but considering it's a drone photo, it surely cannot be more than a few years old at max - [ Edit: using historical streetview, the image must be taken before 2017, because in 2017 the mini gas station in the top right corner had been removed]).  However, on every single satellite image I've found, it's been very clear that there isn't any stevenson screen in that location. The Lund station is a manual station, so it has to be in a traditional wooden stevenson screen. And on this high resolution satellite image from 2018 or 2019 there's clearly no stevenson screen there.  The station is also listed as having been in the same location since either 1997 or 1992 as well. Maybe I'll send an email to SMHI asking about it.  |
|
|
|
Post by Beercules on Jun 25, 2021 5:36:53 GMT -5
No freaking wonder the damn place is the heat epicentre of Sweden.  |
|
|
|
Post by Babu on Jun 25, 2021 6:05:13 GMT -5
BeerculesSeems the location of the station has moved around quite a bit within the area of the fire station. This is an image from 2002 of the station:  This is a recent google earth image of the same location. A lot of the grass was replaced by asphalt, and the station was moved: 
|
|
|
|
Post by tommyFL on Jul 9, 2021 15:50:51 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by tommyFL on Jul 11, 2021 19:19:27 GMT -5
My nearest COOP station, Port Salerno 5W (1.3 miles SE of my house) located at a water treatment plant. Pretty bad sensor placement, located only 20 ft away from a steel building and concrete sidewalk and only 50 ft from a paved road. As a result, it tends to record smaller diurnal ranges than expected. Sorry for the blurry photo, the plant was fenced off and I had to take a photo from 100 ft away.  |
|
|
|
Post by AJ1013 on Jul 11, 2021 19:28:47 GMT -5
JDWX, a South Florida Water Management District station located within the boundary of Jonathan Dickinson State Park. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be calibrated properly as it consistently reads about 1-2 °F too cool. It has been in operation since 1997.    I went hiking there a few days ago. Pretty area. |
|
|
|
Post by Babu on Aug 7, 2021 4:18:46 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Babu on Dec 13, 2021 3:37:25 GMT -5
This is a roadside weather station 20km inland from Umeå, operated by the traffic agency. I wonder what went through their minds when they decided to put the station on the left/east side of the road instead of the right/west side of the road. One is open field, one is dense vegetation. Just seems odd to me.  |
|
|
|
Post by Beercules on Dec 13, 2021 4:11:52 GMT -5
I think the Umean traffic agency is on drugs. They need their asses kicked.
|
|
|
|
Post by Crunch41 on Dec 21, 2021 23:47:06 GMT -5
There is a weather station in Death Valley just a few feet from a parking lot. On the other side is a hill. Elevation is negative 219 feet, which doesn't seem quite right since the Badwater basin has a sign saying negative 282 feet. No way is that sign 60 feet lower than the station. It is a HADS station with data starting August of 2021. The hottest day (29th) was 120F, Death valley's main station reached 119 that day and 120 the next. One article I found claimed it was new ( link). This article lists other stations in the Death Valley area. The confusing thing is that the street view is from 2012. I don't know where to find the data from previous years. HADS meta data page It's on the wrh map ( link) and the recent data viewing page. Changing the "168" in the URL to a larger number gives more data, but there might be a limit. www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/timeseries.php?sid=BWBC1&num=168&banner=gmap&raw=0&w=325 |
|
|
|
Post by jetshnl on Dec 21, 2021 23:53:13 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Beercules on Dec 24, 2021 21:16:02 GMT -5
Whoever was in charge of placing that Death Valley station needs to be de-penised ASAP. Gives Sweden's best efforts a run for their money.
|
|
|
|
Post by knot on Dec 24, 2021 21:18:49 GMT -5
Ed's Moron looking like a real spastic right about now lmao. Suck shit.
|
|
|
|
Post by tommyFL on Jan 3, 2022 22:06:03 GMT -5
I'm working on a new project: a cellular remote weather station. The decision to build one was partly because of my frustration with my PWS (and many other weather stations on the market) in regards to how data is stored and transmitted. Like most others, my PWS sends data via radio signal to the indoor display, which then uploads it to WU/Ambient Weather/etc. via WiFi. There is no ability to store data locally in the event of a internet failure, which happens fairly frequently. Only the max/min values for each variable are saved until the end of the day. The station I'm building will send data to the internet via LTE Cat-M1 and store data on a SD card as a backup for whenever the cell signal might be lost. I might add satellite communication for more remote areas, but it is significantly more expensive to send data that way so I will start out with only cellular. I know very little about electronics, so this project will be a good excuse to learn more about sensors, microcontrollers, etc. The station will use an Arduino to collect data. I'm aware there are probably more capable and less power-hungry boards out there, but since I am new to all of this I figured I'd use something simple. I'm designing the station to be modular: sensors can be added or removed depending on their necessity, just by mounting them on the mast and connecting the cables. This is in contrast to the typical "all-in-one" stations which feature temp, precip, wind, and sometimes solar, without many options for customization. I have the following sensors so far: SHT30 temp/humidity sensor (typ accuracy ±0.2 C, ±2% RH) DSP310 pressure sensor (absolute accuracy ±1 hPa, relative accuracy ±0.06 hPa) I won't be building a rain gauge right away since I haven't decided which type I want to use, but I definitely want to eventually make a heated gauge so it can measure frozen precip. I also want to add a pyranometer some time down the line. While I've been waiting for parts to arrive, I'm been playing around with the pressure sensor. Here are its temp and pressure readings (converted to inHg) shown on the LCD display that came with the Arduino.  |
|
|
|
Post by Benfxmth on Jan 5, 2022 9:27:08 GMT -5
(Didn't bother taking pics in the process), but I've turned the two adjustment screws for calibrating the rain collector of my PWS (a Vantage Pro2) counterclockwise (to reduce the weight/water volume to result in a tip, and thus produce a rainfall reading) 4 revolutions today; following that adjustment, after initially adjusting too much, I did a drip test of 100-110 ml of water over 5-10 minutes three times (an amount which should produce a reading close to 0.20"), and they produced readings of 0.21", 0.22" and 0.18". Too early to make a full judgement (curious to see how readings compare to other nearby PWS'es when it's actually raining) but hopefully that'll work out; I might make minor adjustments if needed.
I've done a drip test last week of prior to calibration of 550 ml and 110 ml (which should produce a reading of just over 1" and ~0.20" respectively), and they came out to be 0.73" and 0.15". I've also done a manual tip test this morning to rule out the possibility of a reed switch failure, and keep in mind there've been no spider webs, that the funnel wasn't blocked at the time and that the sensors are level to the ground.
|
|
|
|
Post by tommyFL on Feb 17, 2022 18:47:27 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by tommyFL on Feb 25, 2022 17:29:05 GMT -5
I placed the station in close proximity to my PWS to see how they compare. They read temperature within 0.1 °F of each other, with neither consistently cooler or warmer than the other. My new station seems to record lower humidity (about 1-3%) than my PWS. I suspect it's somewhat to do with the larger shield in my new station that allows air to exchange more easily instead of humid air pooling up inside. Its humidity sensor is also more accurate, as it's rated for ±2% instead of the ±5% sensor on my PWS. The station is still currently unfinished, but it's at a point where it can be left outdoors at all times and it functions well enough for testing purposes.  |
|
|
|
Post by Babu on Feb 26, 2022 9:05:17 GMT -5
Your radiation shield doesn't provide sufficient shielding from albedo radiation. Also looks kinda translucent |
|
|
|
Post by Babu on Apr 14, 2022 5:19:13 GMT -5
Something odd happened at the airport station yesterday. The warmest hourly reading was 7.2'C at 10:00 local time, but the Tmax supposedly managed to go up all the way to 11.4'C. In spring it's common for temps to shift very rapidly with sun, clouds and winds if the sun is strong and there's a bunch of snow in the area able to rapidly bring cold air. I've never seen a 4.2'C intra-hour increase like that before though. Not impossible I suppose but a bit sus.  Especially considering my PWS only managed to get to a high of 8.5'C, at 11:00 when the airport was reading 4.9'C. (Keep in mind though that since there's such a rapid temperature increase during sun, and temp decrease under clouds, and the cloudscape is very scattered, there will naturally be a pretty significant timing difference between when the high will occur at two stations a couple kilometers apart  The sensor at the airport is able to respond more rapidly to large temperature fluctuations compared to my pws, sure, but a 2.9'C higher Tmax at the airport than at my pws (and all other official and unofficial stations within 50km) seems a little farfetched. Especially since my station recorded 10.2'C vs the airport's max of 7.8'C the day before which on that day made me suspect I might have issues with over reading. I suppose it's possible that it could just be a reflection of the dramatic differences in temperature that are possible within a short distance at this time of the year. |
|
|
|
Post by Ethereal on Apr 17, 2022 1:53:19 GMT -5
Here is the 150 year old (or so) weather station in my area (Prospect Reservoir):  It is pretty much the weather station that can be applicable for the (Western) Sydney region between Liverpool and Parramatta. |
|
