Holley-Navarre Weather

Our Equipment

"The Weather Pole"

This photo showcases the complete 20 foot 

 high weather pole and the weather sensors

that are mounted to it.

 "Wind Vane / Anemometer"

Mounted at the very top of the 20ft weather pole is the wind vane and anemometer combo unit. 

It's job is to measure wind direction and speed. The wind vane portion (arrow pointer) measures wind direction by pointing into the wind as it blows. Depending on which way it's pointing a corresponding directional signal is sent to the base station where it is interpreted and logged as wind direction in degrees from true north.

The anemometer portion (spinning cups) 

measures the speed or how fast the wind is blowing. The faster the wind blows, the faster

 the cups spin. As the cups spin in relation to the wind speed, a pulsed signal is sent to the base station where it is interpreted and logged as wind speed or wind gust.

"Hygro-Thermometer"

Mounted 7ft high on the weather pole is the fan aspirated RG300 radiation shield that houses

 the hygro-thermometer. It allows the

hygro-thermometer to take highly accurate measurments of the air's humidity and temperature without being affected by

solor or reflected radiation.

How it Works: This unit is comprised of two concentric tubes (one smaller tube inside a larger tube and spaced apart). These concentric tubes are attatched to the bottom

of a 300cfm fan unit that is capped by a

special rain/weather/solor radiation shield.

High velocity air is drawn up through the bottom  in between the space of the outer and inner tubes scrubing the space of any heat that could be transfered from the outer tube to the inner tube. Low velocity air is drawn up the inner tube where it's sampled for humidity and temperature. The sample air passes through a special dust 

filter located in the inner tube before reaching

 the delicate hygro-thermometer sensor. 

 All entering air is exhausted out the top of the unit from under the radiation cap in a way that it's not recirculated or resampled.

"Rain Sensor"

The rain sensor is mounted on top of the

fan aspirated radiation shield cap. It's job is

to measure rain fall rate and rain fall amount.

How it works: This rain sensor is of the

"tilting bucket" type. It's comprised of a

special funnel that catches rain fall droplets.

 Directly under this funnel is a special bucket

called a tilting bucket. It looks like a see-saw

with sides, thats divided in half at the pivot point by a damn and is open at both ends

(sort of a divided in half, open ended trough).

 As rain drops are collected by the funnel and fall through, they fill one side of the divided see-saw to the point that it tips. As it tips, the water collected dumps out the open end and the other side of the see-saw aligns to catch more 

rain drops.This process of tiping back and forth continues as long as rain is falling.

Each side of the tip bucket is calibrated

to match the collection area of the funnel.

Each tip of the bucket equals .01 inch of rain.

25 tips would be .25 or one quarter inch of rain.

100 tips would equal 1 inch of rain and so on.

Barometer: The barometric pressure sensor is an integral part of the base station that 

measures the atmospheric pressure. It is housed in the base station because of it's very delicate nature. Barometric pressure is a good indication of weather trend.

Base Station: The base station is located in the weather room. It collects data from the outdoor

sensors, processes it, logs it and sends it to the internet via broadband connection. Data is collected from the sensors and updated every

14 seconds....So Yes, the information you see

here really is Real Time Live!!!