Don's Good Weather Passion

Weather Reporting

The world of the internet and amateur radio have provided a lot of people to go from closet weather freaks to pseudo-meterologists.

My interest in weather has integrated multiple hobbies to be able to offer the community at large insights on the weather where I live in the Vancouver BC area.

 

Weather Station

The weather station that I use is a Davis Weather Monitor II and includes support for:

This system is adequate for personal weather reporting, and the latest software offers the ability to publish weather to the web.

 

Publishing Weather

The weather for TSAWWASSEN/DELTA, B.C., CANADA is published so you can read it on the web at:

Don's Davis Weather Station: Don's Weather Station Reports

NOAA (APRS and Citizens Weather Observation Program): My NOAA/CWOP Weather Report

The Weather Underground: Weather Underground for Tsawwassen/Delta BC

Mobile phones can also get these reports. If you are using the Opera browser on your PC, you can check it out. Unfortunately, Microsoft's Internet Explorer doesn't support WAP at this time. Here is the URL to use: http://wap.findu.com/wx?ve7imd-2

This website is a service of www.findu.com and gives access to many amateur radio APRS weather stations.

How does the weather get from me to you?

This is probably the most complex way to try to do this, but it works without needing an internet connection.

Here are the steps how the weather is published:

  1. Davis weather station records weather (normal function)
  2. Davis WeatherLink software (v5.4) is used to generate the web page at Don's Weather Station Reports, as well as publishes APRS weather data to NOAA/CWOP and the Weather Underground.
  3. The X-10 program Home Control Assistant retrieves the data on a regular basis from the HTML file shown above.
  4. A custom macro generates data into the correct format and places in a PC interchange file for use by UI-View32.
  5. APRS program UI-View32 reads the PC interchange file for weather data on a periodic basis. The info is formatted into an APRS weather report and transmitted by VHF radio across the Pacific Northwest (BC, Washington) using a network of independent repeaters and digipeaters.
  6. The weather message may also be received by one or more APRS IP Gateway sites and sent onto the internet. There are several of these gateways to the internet throughout the region.
  7. www.findu.com monitors APRS traffic on the internet (part of NOAA/CWOP), and collects APRS weather reports by call-sign into a database, as well as other APRS traffic (locations, beacons, messages, etc.)
  8. The web user (you) launches one of the URLs above. When using www.findu.com, the site utilizes its history database to generate charts ranging from 1 to 10 days in duration, depending upon your request. This web page also includes a weather radar display.

Other Weather Sites

There are many other weather sites available. The most useful that I've found are these. They are pointed at weather local to Vancouver Canada area near the US border, but are easily pointed to locations wherever you live.

Weather watching can be very interesting. If nothing else, it helps us know when it's nice outside.

 

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Last Updated: 2008 August 2