Basically, my ultimate goal is to affordably replicate the basic functionality of the official automated airport weather stations. Doing this will allow me to have observational data for my exact location at a higher temporal resolution (airport sites typically only report a few times per hour at most; I would like to have 1-minute observations). Furthermore, by developing a low-cost system, the station could be more easily adopted to provide better spatial resolution for surface observations, to create a mesonet, or even to build portable observation pods.
Here is some information on airport weather stations. Most of the sites are designated as AWOS or ASOS. These sites are run by the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Department of Defense.
ASOS Site
Here is a breakdown of the different parameters that I would like my station to measure (in order of importance):
- Temperature
- Barometric Pressure
- Humidity
- Wind Speed
- Wind Direction
- Precipitation
- Lightning
- Soil Temperature
- Soil Moisture
- Solar Radiation
- Photography (webcam or still-shots)
There are a few other considerations that I will try to work into my station:
- Battery power
- Solar power
- Real-time clock
- Portability
- Long-term data logging
- Data relay via internet
- Data relay via cellular connection
- Data relay via radio (APRS)
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