About This Station

Where is it located?
The location of the weather station is in the very Southeasternmost part of Lee County, which makes my location about 4 miles west of the Alabama/Georgia border. The station is between the cities of Smiths Station and Phenix City. The Lee/Russell county line is about 100 yards to my East.

What kind of station is it, and how do you get your data online?
It is a Davis Weather Monitor II, and I use WeatherLink 5.4 to get my data on the internet. It also uploads my data to Weather Underground.

What instruments are used and what are their purposes?
Basically there are 4 main components to the station. The console receives and displays all of the data measured by the intruments. The 3 other main parts of the station are an Anemometer, Temperature/Humidity Sensor, and Automatic Rain Gauge.

First off, the console displays information such as Temperature, Rainfall, Humidity, Dewpoint, Barometric Pressure, and Wind Speed and Direction. A cable connects the console and data logger to a computer. WeatherLink uploads the weather data to the Internet for the world to see!

Secondly, the Anemometer measures wind speed and direction, and it is probably the most interesting instrument you can have. The Temperature/Humidity Sensor measures the temperature and humidity outdoors. The temperature and humidity readings are used to calculate the dewpoint which is a good indicator of how humid it may feel outside. The Automatic Rain Gauge is a bucket that acts as a funnel for rainwater to run through. There is a little hole at the bottom of the bucket where rainwater drips out into a seasaw like structure. On this seasaw there are 2 "gutters". As one side fills up the seasaw tilts in this direction allowing the other side to be underneath the hole where the rainwater comes in. This process happens over and over. Each time the seasaw tips it is equal to .01 of an inch of rain.