Hardware/Software
The following is a short list of the equipment used to power East Central Illinois Weather.
The station is a Davis Wireless Vantage Pro with Fan-Aspirated Radiation Shield.
The Vantage Pro includes console/receiver, integrated sensor suite (ISS), and mounting hardware. The ISS includes rain collector, temperature and humidity sensors, and solar panel. The anemometer is wired to the ISS but mounted above it on a pole. Temperature and humidity sensors are enclosed in a solar-powered, 24-hour fan-aspirated radiation shield. Shield combines active and passive aspiration to minimize the effects of radiation.
Temperature and rainfall are updated every 10 to 12 seconds; wind speed and direction are updated every 2.5 to 3 seconds; humidity and barometeric pressure are updated every minute. The website updates every 5 minutes (except our home page, most of which update every 5 seconds using AJAX).
Along with our VP, we have a Davis WeatherLink data logger. This not only stores our data, it also allows us to interface with our server. We have the serial version of WeatherLink based on advice that some owners have problems with the USB version.
Davis Weather
GRLevel3 is the software which allows us to publish our own radar images using live NEXRAD Level III data from NOAA. The software also allows us to view storm data down to street level just like local television stations. It detects the possiblity of hail and tornadic activity.
Gibson Ridge Software
Radar - How It Works
Ajax is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. We're using Ajax on our main page to update virtually all the weather elements (even radar and webcam images!), many in near real-time.
