About the Weather Station

The weather station consists of an outside unit that is solar/battery powered. It communicates wirelessly with an indoor console that is connected to our internal computer network. The console then sends the weather data to a dedicated PC that updates the weather webpage and also transmits the weather data to our account at Weather Underground. The weather station was installed in July of 2010, the camera was installed in September of the same year.

The unit is a Vantage Vue wireless weather station sold by Davis Instruments. The outside unit is located on the SE corner of the two story portion of our building. This was chosen as the best location to measure wind direction and speed while having minimal "heat island" effect from the building for measuring temperature.

The camera used to provide a view of the SW sky is an Axis P1344-E 1Mp 720p HD camera. The camera is located atop the SW corner of this same building. The camera is connected to our computer network and is programmed to upload photos to our web site and Weather Underground on a periodic schedule.

What's on the Screen

The main weather page is shown here. The top center identifies our location and shows the current date and time. The page is updated every 2 minutes and your web browser should automatically refresh this page on the same interval. Ocasionally, internet connection problems will cause this to lag somewhat.

Most of the links on this page take you to our Personal Weather Station at Weather Underground (WU). Data at WU is updated every 10 secondsusing WU's "rapid fire" technology.

1. This Section will display a brief summary of any weather advisories issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) in Topeka, KS. The full advisory is located at the bottom of the page. Due to some software "glitches" this summary will occasionally not show the correct information.

2. Today shows the current conditions along with the high and low temperatures. Clicking on the weather icon will take you to the history page for the weather station at Weather Underground. 
   

3. This center section shows quite a bit of information and should be self-explanatory. The high, low, and current temperature is duplicated at other locations on the page. Clicking in this area will take you to the WU "Rapid Fire" page. The rapid fire page updates every 10 seconds showing the current wind speed and direction and rainfall totals. The only negative is that you will occasionally see a "cheesy" background on this page. The rapid fire page requires Adobe Flash so this won't work on an iPad. Although everything else on the weather site works great on an iPad!

4. This is the view of the SW sky from CCMC's rooftop. Clicking on this will take you to the Webcam looppage that will show a time-lapse sequence of photos at higher resolution. These photos are taken every 15 seconds and show the last 15 minutes of activity. The loop is an interesting way to watch a thunderstorm approach or a beautiful Kansas sunset. Weather Underground Webcams links to our webcam page at WU. The WU image is updated every 5 minutes. There are many other webcams in Kansas and around the world that are discoverable from here.

5. The current temperature as well as the total rainfall for the last 24 hours are displayed here. The "Rain Today" in section 3 only shows the total for the current day. If it rains from 11pm till 1am the next day, "Rain Last 24 Hours" will show the total for the storm, "Rain Today" will only show the amount from midnight till 1am.

6. Local Radar shows a thumbnail view of the current Topeka weather radar. Clicking on this will take you to the WU Topeka-Alma radar page. Links are provided below the thumbnail to WU's "WunderMap".WunderMap is a fantastic tool to aggregate all kinds of weather data. The "Road Conditions" link goes to KDOT's road condition page. In the winter, this is valuable to show the current road conditions in the state. It also shows road construction and numerous cameras on the Interstate highways in Kansas.

7. 5 Day Forecast is a concise overview of the weather for the next five days. Clicking on the WU forecastlink or any of the weather graphics will take you to the WU Current Conditions page for Clay Center. NWS Forecast links to the Topeka National Weather Service forecast page for Clay Center, and Weather Story links to a cool weather summary graphic for North Central Kansas.

8. Records & Normals shows the forecast, normal, and record temperatures for this date. History links to the WU history page for our weather station. Daily Data links to the raw data accumulated from the weather station. River Levels links to the National Weather Service "Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service" for North Central Kansas. You can see current and predicted river levels for the area.