BOM - WOW - Weather Observations Website

[onetrack]

G'day all - I wasn't sure where to put this topic, but I guess General Discussion will have to do. The BOM has realised the benefits of harnessing the combined power of the internet, and individual weather stations, and individual observations, to provide a bigger weather information database, than what is currently available from the official BOM weather reporting stations, and aviation weather reports.

 

The number of individuals with their own weather stations - such as the Davis Weather Stations (which are not overly expensive in the bigger scheme of things), is increasing daily, and being able to access real-time weather information from these privately-owned stations (many of whom, freely share their weather data) is a major bonus to anyone who needs accurate weather information from a certain region.

 

The BOM has initiated a weather-information sharing website called WOW - Weather Observations Website - which pulls together anyone who wants to report any weather event. While some contributions may be of limited value (such as unskilled personal observations, or photos), the information from the private weather stations, such as the Davis units, would provide a reasonably good source of pretty accurate weather conditions at any given locality. 

The additional information from the WOW website must all help in determining the local weather conditions at a distant site you wish to visit - particularly when weather conditions are unstable and changing fairly rapidly.

 

I believe the WOW website has some good potential; provided people with private weather stations are notified of the existence of the site and get onboard, and link their real-time weather information to the site.

The site is actually run by the U.K. Met Office - but it provides worldwide location mapping, so you can look up anywhere on the globe when you have an internet connection.

Naturally, the information is all surface based - you're not going to be able to get any "weather at altitude" reports - but I thought this information would be of benefit in assessing local weather at small airstrips that RA-owners might be planning to land at.

 

The only snag at this point, is the website has some current incompatibility issues when logging in with the Chrome browser, but these issues are being addressed, and they're expected to be fixed in Jan 2021, with a programming update.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/wow-support/

[Jerry_Atrick]

My step father-in-law has a weather station at his place and I think he contributes to it.. He is an ex aviation meteorologist before turning his hand to bank manager. Even so, he is a handy resource when flying with me.

 

 

[red750]

I had  look at the site and some observations near me. Here are two screen prints taken only a minute or two apart. The stations are the white dots on the map, less than 1 km apart. Note the difference in air pressure. There should have been a gale between the two stations. I live in a street close to Tucker Road in the bottom right corner.

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

Obviously the equipment at one of these stations requires calibration or perhaps both of them do. Then you can buy very cheap weather stations these days with flash looking screens, anemometers, rain gauges thermometers, hygrometers, and wind direction indicators etc all wireless. I had one and it rarely agreed with what the local BOM site said in terms of barometric pressure & the rain gauge was hopelessly inaccurate.

 

I have a Thomen altimeter I bought in the 1970s when I was hang gliding. It has  a Swiss jewelled movement and I calibrate it every year or 2 and it is amazingly accurate. All the Chinese have done with electronics is make them cheap and crap.

[onetrack]

Yes, there's a reason why the BOM issue weather station siting specifications. But not a lot of the private weather station owners would probably know about them.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/observation_specification_2013.pdf

 

In addition, the official BOM weather stations are susceptible to a number of variations and omissions, anyway - as well as breakdowns in reporting, either by staff or equipment failures.

The BOM is trending more towards automated stations instead of staffed stations (many of which,  rely on volunteers, anyway) - but even automated stations are prone to occasional failure.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/stations/about-weather-station-data.shtml