Which Automatic Weather Station?

If you have been doing some research already you will see there are several weather stations on the market with connection to a PC to be able to store and analyse your data. Of these there are primarily 3 that we would advise for use in education: the Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 range, Davis Instruments Vantage Vue and Oregon Scientific's WMR200. Click here for our Davis Education brochure. Other models are too basic, not robust enough thus their longevity is short, and do not give the accuracy requested.

• Davis Vantage Pro 2

  The Vantage Pro2 is robust, accurate, updates every 2.5 seconds and the wireless version has a signal range of up to 300 metre giving you greater flexibility on mounting options. With the DI-6510 Serial USB or Mac Data Logger added you may archive recorded data at intervals from 1 minute out to 2 hours, when set at 2 hours the data logger will store up to 213 days worth of data before the memory fill and overwrites on a FirstInFirstOut basis. There is the option of using the DI-6555 IP logger for connecting your weather station to a network. The data can be downloaded into your local copy of WeatherLink software either from weatherlink.com or from the logger itself to create graphs, generate summaries, and more. The device continues to work as a data logger so choosing a logging interval of 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, or 120 minutes allows the logger store up to six months of data before downloading.

  Davis Vantage Pro 2 systems are very expandable by adding additional Solar & UV sensors plus individual soil moisture, Temp/RH, and leaf wetness stations, all reporting into the same console. Click here for a list of accessories

  The Davis Vantage Pro2 systems are generally available from stock and covered by a 2 year warranty.  In addition to this we can offer a 15% discount off the Davis MRP, due to the large quantities of Davis equipment we stock and sell, on all accessories purchased within 12 months from original order date.

• Davis Vantage Vue

  It is mainly primary schools who are on a budget who opt for the Vantage Vue instead of the Vantage Pro2 system. The Vantage Vue system provides accurate and reliable basic weather monitoring in a self-contained, easy-to-install system. The outdoor sensor suite is easy to install and starts sending data wirelessly to your console. You'll see current weather conditions, including indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, dew point and rainfall. You'll also get weather forecast icons, moon phase, sunrise/sunset times, graphing of weather trends, alarms and more. Computer and internet connection can be added. 

  Please note you can not expand the Vantage Vue with any of the Davis additional sensors such as temperature, solar, UV, soil moisture and soil temperature.

  The Davis Vantage Vue systems are generally available from stock and covered by a 1 year warranty.

If using a Davis station your school can join the GLOBE programme which enables students to measure the local environment at their school, and compare it with other schools around the world. 

• Oregon Scientific WMR200

  WMR200 is the most advanced complete weather station from Oregon Scientific. You’ll see the precise radio-controlled time, current indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, wind chill, dew point, heat index, barometric pressure and rainfall data. The station also provides a weather forecast based on the barometric pressure reading. WMR200 is PC downloadable via a built-in data logger function.

  There are additional temperature & humidity sensors, a pool sensor and a UV sensor which can be added to increase the parameters measured.

  The Oregon Scientific WMR200 systems are generally available from stock and covered by a 1 year warranty.

Weather Software for Education

The Weather Display family of software gets the most from your weather station and can be used with the Davis and Oregon Scientific stations.  The software is stacked full of features and options, providing enhanced graphics to provide the "Wow" factor and attract more viewers to your school's website. Weather Display32 is used on your desktop to download the weather station data into. Adding Weather Display Live enhances your website and Weather Map Live provides you with a way of displaying weather data on a map via your website for just about anywhere in the world.

• Weather Display32 - software to get the most from your weather station. 
• Weather Display Live - may also be added to provide the "Wow" factor and attract more viewers to your website See our website for an example
• Weather Map Live - Flash movie that uses data available from Metars (airports) or Weather Display weather stations, you can put your local group of schools on one map to see local differences!

Land Based Education

As well as our professional range of products on our Weather Shop website you may find that our EnviroMonitors website best suits your requirements. EnviroMonitors is our technical products site which specifically focuses on the horticultural, agricultural & turf sectors within the UK. We are the distributors for the UK and Eire for Spectrum Technologies. We provide an extensive range of weather, climate and environmental monitoring and agronomy science tools aimed specifically at agricultural and growing users. The whole range of products is extensive and largely unmatched, a veritable one stop shop for growers and researchers. You may wish to contact our sales team by phone on 0845 680 6803 or by email info@enviromonitors to discuss your specific requirements.

Electronic V's Traditional in Education

We often receive calls from schools who remember having a Stephenson Screen in their school grounds as a child which is where they went to get the temperature readings. We still agree that this is a valuable way of enhancing your students experience of weather, however there is only so much you can measure in this way - temperature and humidity!

Therefore the benefit that electronic, or Automated Weather Stations (AWS), provide students is enormous. As discussed earlier AWS can be used in meteorology (as part of Geography), science and technology, maths, communications and media, and ICT.

We are often informed that weather data for all areas of the UK and world can be gained so easily from the world-wide web, so why would you use your budget to purchase an AWS for your school or educational establishment? One teacher that had purchased from us summed it up well. He had been using an online weather data source for several years and when he went to it in 2008 it was no longer there. It was at this point that he realised that if he had purchase an AWS for the school they would have their own records which would have been backed-up and able to access for years to come to provide comparisons for future students. Also, there is a key aspect of learning weather where you can see what is going on outside and relate it to data you are collecting at your site.....it is a different story if you are looking out the window where it is raining and then looking at data collected on the web for somewhere only 5 miles up the road where it is not raining.

Each year we are pleased to be told about even more ways an Automatic Weather Station can be used in educational establishments. Over the years we have been adding to the list below:

• Use Weather Map Live to view data around the world
• Covers data harvesting section of National Curriculum
• Provides interesting information to collect - the data means something tangible rather than lots of digits
• Geography lessons
• Maths / Stats lessons - again interesting data to analyse
• Software can assist with ICT programming / using flash
• Media - weather reports, such as local students get from Eastbourne Youth Radio
• Serve the community by having local weather on your schools website
• Meteorological Group can be in charge of collating data into the spreadsheets saved on your intranets to provide people with access to the data
• If a Davis station can join GLOBE programme enables students to measure the local environment at their school, and compare it with other schools around the world
• This information will be compared to the information collected from the School BMS system offering the students an overview of weather patterns and their effect on the building and energy usage.