Citizens Weather Observer Program
02/04/08 21:08 Filed in: Personal
I started experimenting with reporting wind data
through the CWOP
(Citizens Weather Observer Program). Using
OSCirrus,
my open source wind speed and direction package,
I've been collecting wind data for a long time
(nearly a year) but have never contributed the
data.
CWOP is an organization which uses a ham radio data protocol called APRS which has provisions for reporting weather data either through a ham data channel or directly through the internet. Since I'm not a ham operator, the internet channel was obvious.
I created a Ruby program which reads the wind data feed my device pushes to my web server. It then tracks average wind speed and maximum gusts over the sample period, formats the CWOP data string and sends it to the CWOP servers. Those servers in turn track the historical data for a time and it's possible to see a web page of graphs divvied up by various time intervals.
My CWOP registration number is CW9779 and my CWOP historical wind data page can be found at: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=CW9779&last=24
If you click on the graph above, it will take you to my CWOP station page. If you scroll down it will show you a radar view of the weather around this station. I've been able to find a few other folks around the Monument, CO area who are also posting their weather data.
I'd like to add temperature and humidity to OSCirrus and start to round this out, but usually I'm more interested in the wind data.
When I get a chance and do more testing, for the technically minded readers, I'll write up the Ruby program and post it to: OSCirrus
CWOP is an organization which uses a ham radio data protocol called APRS which has provisions for reporting weather data either through a ham data channel or directly through the internet. Since I'm not a ham operator, the internet channel was obvious.
I created a Ruby program which reads the wind data feed my device pushes to my web server. It then tracks average wind speed and maximum gusts over the sample period, formats the CWOP data string and sends it to the CWOP servers. Those servers in turn track the historical data for a time and it's possible to see a web page of graphs divvied up by various time intervals.
My CWOP registration number is CW9779 and my CWOP historical wind data page can be found at: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=CW9779&last=24
If you click on the graph above, it will take you to my CWOP station page. If you scroll down it will show you a radar view of the weather around this station. I've been able to find a few other folks around the Monument, CO area who are also posting their weather data.
I'd like to add temperature and humidity to OSCirrus and start to round this out, but usually I'm more interested in the wind data.
When I get a chance and do more testing, for the technically minded readers, I'll write up the Ruby program and post it to: OSCirrus
