Topic: Father/Son Weather Station setup

[acepm]

Good morning from Berlin, Maryland!

My name is Thom and I stumbled across your great site a few days ago. I have a 5 1/2 year old son who just seems to be so interested in the weather at this age. I decided to jump in and buy a Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus wireless. We also purchased the Weather-LinkIP Datalogger and software. I'm not the most handy of folks and decided that a wireless setup would be easier to setup than the cable system.

We have already setup our mini link at:

http://www.weatherlink.com/user/berlinmd/

I would love to get the other information this system contains onto our own website...but I believe I have a bit more reading to do at the moment on these forum pages.

I want to edit the 2009 rainfall monthly totals for our area. Where in the world can I find accurate data for monthly rainfall totals on line? I'm obviously not looking in the right places because all I can find is averages and other sites that want to sell me something! LOL!

Can someone please point me in the right direction for Berlin, MD or Ocean City, MD??

I am going to secure a site name with GoDaddy! today for us to start posting our information to. It seems that Linux is the way I need to go for server/hosts according to what I've read on these boards here. No problem.

Should I be using the WeatherLink software or is there something better out there?

Lastly, it seems that there is a TON of information this Pro system is kicking out. I don't understand "everything" that it is sending me, so if you all don't mind, I may make a short list of some of the things I don't clearly understand and ask for your help here.

This unit probably has more computing power than the first rocket to the moon ever did! 

Thank you,

Thom & TJ

[Anthony]

First congratulations on the new weather station. I'm sure you and your son will enjoy it very much.

Second, I would not worry about entering any rainfall totals. I would simply start out fresh.

Lastly, depending on what you want do do with you data, weatherlink may be all you need. But I would suggest downloading the trial versions of Weather Display (WD) & Virtual Weather Station (VWS).

[killwilly]

Hello Thom, welcome to you and your son to the forum. Apart from the software already mentioned you could give Cumulus a try.

www.sandaysoft.com

Alan.

[Bushman]

http://mi.nws.noaa.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=akq

Wait till your 5 yr old sees It's raining cats and Dogs!" on the display. 

[CJK]

Apart from the software already mentioned you could give Cumulus a try.

www.sandaysoft.com

As a newbie weather station owner/operator, I will second the recommendation of Sandaysoft's Cumulus -- truly excellent software which is VERY easy to get up and running but which has quite a bit of capability for customization once one gets comfortable with it.

-- Chris