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Personal Weather Stations Helping With Weather Forecasting 72

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.
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Personal Weather Stations Helping With Weather Forecasting

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  • by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @02:43AM (#22115532)
    Are you required to consistently install your weather station? It would seem like you could get some inconsistent data if some people mount them in the sun while others in the shade etc. Or are they just depending on the volume of reports to create a median result?
    • by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @03:57AM (#22115772)
      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.
    • by k4hg ( 443029 )
      Not required, but there are recommendations:

      http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dshelms/CWOP_Guide.pdf [comcast.net]

      There is also a database of siting photos, so an interested meteorologist can see the station in context.

      Steve
    • by coaxial ( 28297 )
      I set up my dad's weather station [wunderground.com] (a . Highly recommend it, as does Make Magazine)) is part of cwop. [davisnet.com]

      If you get a good weather station, the system comes with sunshades for thermometer, and obviously you won't put it under a tree if you want the rain gauge to work. The only real guidelines they give you about placement is where to setup your anemometer if you have one. You want to put it 7 meters above ground level, and ideally 20 meters from any obstructions. If there are obstructions (e.g. trees and hou
    • by coaxial ( 28297 )
      (Should have hit preview. :( )

      I set up my dad's weather station [wunderground.com] (a Davis Vantage Pro2 [davisnet.com]. Highly recommend it, as does Make Magazine)) is part of cwop.

      If you get a good weather station, the system comes with sunshades for thermometer, and obviously you won't put it under a tree if you want the rain gauge to work. The only real guidelines they give you about placement is where to setup your anemometer if you have one. You want to put it 7 meters above ground level, and ideally 20 meters from any obstructions
    • by CharlieG ( 34950 )
      There are install GUIDELINES, and the system cross checks for out of tolerance data - they have an idea what they can expect in an area. For instance, the next CWOP station in my area is about 5 miles southeast of me - and I have another 7 miles Northeast - if my station shows a temp difference of say 5 degs from them, either there is afront coming through (so - do I match the data to the staions to my NW and SW?) or, more likely, my station has a problem

      So far, I do OK on Temp and Humidity - I KNOW I have
  • I don't need a personal radio station to tell me that a thunderhead will be following me around all day.  I already know that.
  • DOH (Score:5, Funny)

    by imasu ( 1008081 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @02:49AM (#22115552)
    This submission was worthy simply for attributing the acronym DOH to the Dept of Homeland Security.
    • In a Homer Simpsonesque interpretation of the acronym "DOH" it should deifinately be that of the Homeland Security. (DOH is actually the Department of Health, which is not a bad fit either.)

  • Mixed opinions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @02:58AM (#22115596)
    NOAA is the single remaining government agency that I still trust implicitly. DHS is nearly the polar opposite. I'm not sure what to make of a collaboration between them, but I'm encouraged by the fact that they're taking input from regular citizens. No doubt NOAA is behind that initiative.

    There has been tremendous pressure from commercial weather interests to devalue the NOAA/NWS, to decrease its funding, to cripple its information distribution, in favor of making people pay to get the sort of weather data that NOAA has been distributing for free ever since they were chartered. I'm happy to see that new programs with public participation and cooperation are still being created. WX data is crucial for everyone, let's keep it open and free and public.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gotzero ( 1177159 )
      I do agree this data should stay open. They should make a larger appeal for weather data points. I would happily give them the data from a station at my home as long as I knew it would be a public information good...
      • Re:Mixed opinions (Score:5, Insightful)

        by GPSguy ( 62002 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:53AM (#22116350)
        Actually, the data are now likely to remain free for some period. NWS got a boost when Rick Santorum (R-PA) failed of reelection last time.

        I'm not an NWS employee but I do work with them on several projects. I've been present when some of the private sector have called for NWS to stop giving away data, forecasats, etc., to the public... just as long as they kept giving it away for free to the private companies. This isn't right. It's just plain wrong.

        I do participate in CWOP, and several of my projects benefit from MADIS. Both of these are really cool projects, and they really do help improve weather forecasting both by allowing more data for data assimilation, whereby we use real world observations to enhance the data for the models, AND by allowing for more data for forecast verifications. NWS would love to have the funding to place more weather stations under their direct control out there for these purposes. Congress has seen fit to not make that possible. MADIS is an example of of a stellar program to gather in data from a variety of sources, and then to process it to afford some indication of data quality based on neighbor-comparison, reasonableness and internal consistency. CWOP is a sign of citizens volunteering their data to allow a really good Federal Agency to do their jobs better.

        Oh, and while I'm at it, NWS is one of the few agencies who compute and use real metrics for performance, including how well their forecasts perform. So many other agencies seem to create metrics designed to prove they simply know how to play the game. I've gotten to see the process surrounding how they look at storm-based warning evaluations, and the effort going into making sure the evaluations mean something, and that they represent what's really happening were eye-opening for me.

        Yeah, they are doing it right.
    • I am not from the US but I first heard of Jim Hansen [wikipedia.org] in the 80's, IMHO he is one of the great minds of the 20th century and has shown the required balls to publicly 'speak truth to power' on several occasions to both sides of US politics.

      A public servant who really does serve the public, what will they think of next?
    • Wasn't NOAA evil? I thought that was RIAA's submarine division. ;-)

    • by coaxial ( 28297 )
      Actually, AccuWeather doesn't want to defund the NOAA, they just want to keep NOAA from distributing their data. AccuWeather wants NOAA around, because NOAA provides a big chunk of the data AccuWeather uses! Weather data collection is expensive, and they don't want to have to collect it all themselves.
  • Davis WS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vskye ( 9079 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @03:00AM (#22115604)
    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.
    • by sucati ( 611768 )
      what linux software supports davis systems? I was about to purchase a vantage pro2 but didn't like the $150 price tag on the proprietary serial cable.
  • Grants (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ascii genitals ( 1047648 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @03:47AM (#22115736)
    It would be great if I could apply to a program/agency and get a standardized weather reporting kit in order to participate for free. Basically just have them distribute grant money in order to set up even more stations.
    • Re:Grants (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jamesh ( 87723 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @04:02AM (#22115786)
      That would be pretty cool. The weather station nearest us (~10km away) recorded no rain about a week ago, but we got heaps. The sort of rain that has been coming through here has been really really patchy the last few years. So if we had a weather station it would have recorded completely different rain, humidity and wind speed for that period. I'm sure that sort of activity happens all over the world, so more data collection points would give a much better picture of the 'now' weather. Not sure if that translates to better prediction though.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TapeCutter ( 624760 )
        "Not sure if that translates to better prediction though."

        Computer climate/weather models use finite element analysis [wikipedia.org]. If they get enough data to improve the resolution of the models, and enough computing power to make use of the better resolution, then yes the predictions should improve.

        Disclaimer:IANAMeterologist
    • by jrumney ( 197329 )
      I guess having a cost barrier to entry (weather stations are not cheap) ensures that only people who have a genuine interest participate. If the general public started participating, they might end up installing the equipment incorrectly, or maliciously injecting bogus data, and the quality of the data collected would deteriorate.
      • However (and someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this), having more data to work with will make your overall predictions and observations better. Yes, having a thermometer bring in a reading of 65 degrees when it's really 35 outside can be a problem. But it seems that most inaccuracies would be blatant enough that they could be rejected as such. It would seem that any variance that is minuscule enough to not be noticed would not affect the accuracy very much.
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I believe I've seen something like that before. Either the NWS or CWOP do indeed have a program like this. They basically loan out additional hardware for this purpose. It's usually older decommissioned hardware (not 100% automated) that has been replaced with a newer, more up to date AWOS/ASOS.
      Check with your local NWS forecast office, they might have some idea about this. We always need more surface observations.
      The cost of purchasing your own hardware, depending on what capabilities you wish to have, gen
    • If you want one, just buy one.

      Why should the government buy you a station? If they are going to put up stations, they'll just put up their own wherever they want them. Why give you a grant so you can have your own weather station, unless you're some kind of weather guru, in which case you probably already bought your own.

      The administration on a government grant program alone would cost more than the station, its installation and maintenance. This is a voluntary program of citizens working to help a por

    • Re:Grants (Score:4, Informative)

      by grumling ( 94709 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @09:00AM (#22116552) Homepage
      They've become quite a bit cheaper over the years, and some of the newer wired sensors are very affordable: http://www.aagelectronica.com/ [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.
      • by dfries ( 466073 )
        $32.50 for the USB 1-wire DS2490 seemed a bit much for me to buy multiple. I just have to conclude that the scale of operations just isn't there yet. There are drivers in the Linux kernel tree for this device, they just need some improvement. The are currently a bit of a CPU hog when they don't need to be. I submitted two trivial bug fix patches yesterday and I'm working on more to address the CPU hog issues.

        I have the ds18b20 sensors. Once I get the drivers up to snuff I intend to put some temperatur

      • It's also not too difficult to get one of those cheap systems on the network, even if it's somewhere reasonably remote - there are some mountaintop systems around here, for example. I'm a little biased, but at least for the AAG stations I think the best option is one of my kits - they'll talk directly to the station, and can be used with just about any junker 2-meter ham radio you can find on eBay. A ham license is required, of course. If you set it up to control power to the radio, you can knock the ave
  • "Grandma, wait, don't fart near that.....nevermind"
  • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @04:47AM (#22115868)
    This is an interesting application of distributed and networked technology (I'm not sure what else to call it - would this be classified as distributed computing?) - using technology to extract information from an extremely large number of processing nodes in a way that is impractical on a smaller scale. It reminds me in a way of projects like Seti@Home/Folding@Home. That is, using the combined technological resources from a large number of people to do some pretty cool things that just weren't possible a few years ago.

    It will be interesting to see what other sorts of projects in this vein take shape in the near future.

  • by phorest ( 877315 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @06:32AM (#22116150) Journal

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

  • checked for temporary and spatial consistency

    I think he meant "temporal".
  • by PineHall ( 206441 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @05:59PM (#22120716)
    "CoCoRaHS [cocorahs.org] (the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network) is a unique, non-profit, community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together to measure and map precipitation (rain, hail and snow). By using low-cost measurement tools, stressing training and education, and utilizing an interactive Web-site, our aim is to provide the highest quality data for natural resource, education and research applications."
  • Yep. here's my weather station: Page: http://weather.spc-tech.com/ [spc-tech.com] Images: http://www.radiocity.si/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3352#3352 [radiocity.si] Enjoy.
  • Look Out the Window (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BanjoBob ( 686644 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @11:02PM (#22122978) Homepage Journal
    I was trying to determine the weather so I could decide if I wanted to drive 60 miles north. The sky was very cloudy and dark. It was cold and it looked like snow would fall any minute. The Weather Channel and Weather.com both said it was clear skies all the way. I checked the forcasts on Accuweather and weather.com. Same thing -- nothing but clear skies all day. There was just one problem. You couldn't see a clear sky anywhere.

    I really suggest that before these services post data like this that they look out the window first.

    Computers, data, NEXRAD and all are fine but, they often are blind too. I would guess that along the Rocky Mountains that the weather service is correct about 65% of the time. The other 35% they are so far off that it is amazing. We've had an inch of rain when it is reported clear skies and good weather. We've had snow on clear days. We've had clear days when the weather service reports cloudy...

    My dad was piloting a plane out of Kansas City when he was told to take a heading directly into a huge thunderhead. He told the center that there was a huge thunderhead in front of him on that heading. The center told him there wasn't -- nothing on the radar. My dad asked the controller to...Look Out The Window. He was given directions around the storm. It's no wonder that weather is a part of learning to fly.

    Best advice - look out the window.
    • by Shotgun ( 30919 )
      One beautifully clear day, I got an itch and called my flight instructor to see if there were any openings for a flight that day.

      "What? It's pouring rain," was his response. The airport was about 30miles away.

      Since Congress has seen fit to allow consolidation of broadcast TV, all the news channels are one big conglomeration. The guy doing your weather reporting is also doing it for a city a couple hundred miles away. What he reports is the overall weather pattern, and that may have very little to what i
  • I received a personal weather station as a gift. It's not the kind that broadcasts to the Internet, but it's still nice to be able to check the outside temperature when inside. My only complaint is that it runs through batteries. We're down to 7.2F tonight right now in Virginia and the cold weather is hard on batteries. Lithium batteries seem to last longer, but they are also more expensive. I recommend a classic non-electric thermometer as backup. In my area, you can be a weather watcher [your4state.com] for the loca

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