Topic: advice needed for municipal weather station/software

[weathergirl]

Hi all: I need the benefit of everyone's experience with this please.  The public works department of the Town of Grimsby (where I grew up) has asked me for advice on purchasing a weather station and software.
I told them what I know about using my weather station and software, and they were impressed
These are their requirements:
A system that will require minimal hands on maintenance (set it and forget it would be best).
A system that will store every reading that comes off of the system into a database such as Mysql or MS SQL.
The ability to retrieve that information and view any previous day down to the minute.
 
What would be your recommendations?
 

[mmorris]

For Professional weather stations here is a link this stuff has no prices I could find so it probably better quality then a personal weather station:

http://www.coastalenvironmental.com/content/aboutcoastal.html


A system that will require minimal hands on maintenance (set it and forget it would be best).  This is probably a deal breaker for any weather station at least as far as personal weather station go.

[Mark / Ohio]

Did they give any clue as far as budget for the project?

When they see how high prices can go they might decide a little more hands on with help from the city's IT and electrical departments on a Davis Station would be ok. 

[tomcj2]

When they see how high prices

When did any government worry about price?

[George Richardson]

"When did any government worry about price?"

Somewhere around July - September 2008!

[Mark / Ohio]

When they see how high prices

When did any government worry about price?

True but we are talking on a local level here rather then federal.  Not that they have anymore sense, just the noose tightens a little quicker during bad times.   

[mackbig]

remember we are in Canada, we did not even have a hint of recession till the US credit crunch, and the media started using the R word every second sentence...  the old self-fulfilling prophecy up here....

Andrew

"When did any government worry about price?"

Somewhere around July - September 2008!

[longmire]

Hi, Anne-Marie!

I don't know about the software end of things,but my venerable 15-Year-Old Texas Weather Instruments WR-25 is still running quite nicely. The folks at TWI have provided me with GREAT tech support (and repairs the two times that lightning/surges took out the COM chip).

They offer a whole line of Stations, including more "professional" ones that most of the TV weather folks down here seem to be using. My only concern about this recommnendation is - you ARE in Canada, and I hear that you folks get a BIT more snow & ice than we do down here in Houston  . However, TWI is in Dallas (sort of the "Canada" of Texas  ) and they get a fair number of snow/ice storms each year up there, so perhaps they have a solution that would work for you. Contact Dave Patterson there. Their website is at http://www.txwx.com/.

Disclaimer - I have no affiliation with them at all - I am just one of their oldest customers.

Best of luck -

Steve

[weathergirl]

Thanks for all your suggestions, guys. I'll forward the links to the IT contact. I'm still concerned about these two statements:

A system that will store every reading that comes off of the system into a database such as Mysql or MS SQL.
The ability to retrieve that information and view any previous day down to the minute.

Any ideas?

[Bushman]

Ann-Marie, I know that several provincial gov'ts use R.M. Young weather instruments and they are used extensivelty in  the oil patch as well (they have intrinsically safe instruments).  http://www.youngusa.com/

As to the database question, I don't think there are any applications that use such technology, or are commerically available.  This guy did a bang-up job with MySql:  www.wx.ca

[Garth Bock]

Just my 2 cents...a Davis VPro 2, VWS, Weather Flash, and VWSql for MySQL Database. The Davis has the highest quality, VWS for recording and displaying weather data, Weather Flash to present a really nice web page and the VWSql provides the database capability with a webpage front end that allows people to look up weather data on their own. As for no-maintenance...welll there is always some on things left outside in the weather. Remember .... plug and play usually doesn't....

[Garth Bock]

Forgot that you will need the VWphp module which is free to display the data from the MySql database.

[Weather Display]

there are also other weather software that offers mysql updating as well that could be worth checking out