Retrieve Weather Data for Graphical Analysis
Programming Snapshot – Go Weather Data Analysis
© Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash
Mike Schilli's new home rooftop weather station continuously provides sun, wind, and rain data. High time to create a custom analysis program.
The consumer market provides an abundance of weather stations and sensors. The Ecowitt model offers the advantage that the data it measures is both appealingly visualized in the vendor's own app and can also be retrieved directly from the hub's web server in raw JSON format. For amateur meteorologists, this means that you can extract the data for your own DIY post-processing.
The Wittboy WS90 weather sensor (Figure 1) is designed for outdoor use, ideally to be installed on the roof of a house, so that rain can fall on it and the wind blow through it without interference. It does not need an external power supply, because it relies on two AA batteries as a buffer and simultaneously charges an internal super capacitor via an integrated solar panel. The sensor has no moving parts. It uses piezoelectric elements to measure rain, and ultrasonic sensors to measure wind direction and speed. The device can optionally be heated in winter to help melt away any snow cover that might otherwise be blocking the sensors. The downside is that the heater then requires a power supply, but luckily in never snows in San Francisco, where I live.
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