This site is administered by both the Affetside Millennium Green Trust and the Affetside Society
his is the Affetside weather page. The following is a bit of a potted history on
how this weather station came into being; Many years ago one of our committee
members set up weather station at a school he used to teach at, and with his pupils they
used to record the weather. When he related this story to us we thought it would be
interesting to see what sort of weather we do get up here. We know we are exposed, and
that it can get a bit wild at times, but let’s see the numbers!
The station itself is what is known as a Personal Weather Station, which consists of various
sensors and a base station. The sensors are mounted on a pole out in the open and are all
linked to a transmitter. The various sensors are anemometer, wind vane, temperature
sensor, hygrometer and a rain gauge. These sensors take readings and then transmit
them wirelessly to a base station which is located in the house of a village resident. This is
linked via USB to a PC. The weather software on the PC (Cumulus) makes sense of the
data, and then in turn, uploads it to the internet every 10 mins or so.
Real-time Village weather
information can be found HERE
Affetside weather is now also updated automatically
on Twitter, click HERE to view.
Affetside weather can also be viewed on the Weather
Underground site, click HERE to view it.
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The weather station we use is a Watson W8681. This is actually manufactured by Fine
Offset Electronics but is branded under a variety of different names, for different
retailers.
The unit itself is what some weather aficionados would call ‘cheap’ - there are others out
there costing several hundred pounds, but despite that, it seems relatively accurate and
tracks the calibrated weather station at Manchester Airport very accurately.
The web feed from the software (Cumulus) goes to Twitter, Weather Underground and
PWS Weather websites. The Weather Underground site is very comprehensive and has
interactive maps showing other Personal Weather Stations in the area and around the
world.
There is another identical weather station that has recently been set up in nearby
Walshaw, the relevant readings can be found by clicking here
From the short time we have had the station feeding this website the weather page has
risen in popularity and now receives ‘hits’ from all over the world.
This page has been kindly sponsored by Gee Squared Ltd,
Town Planning Consultants.
Click the image above to go to the Gee Squared website