A weather station is required to send weather observations to the WOW database. This station must be able to connect to a computer, microcomputer or wireless network. There is a large selection of weather stations available to buy particularly over the internet, there are some examples here. Most stations measure temperature, precipitation, humidity, air pressure and wind. WOW allows the upload of a combination of weather sensors- all sensors are not required. Note that in some cases some computer skills are required to perform the installation. A software package may be available from the manufacturer to install on a PC or laptop which will read in observations from the weather station outside. This may come with the weather station, if not please ask the supplier to advise.
WOW compatible software is then required to upload weather station observations to the WOW database. Before purchasing, please check with the manufacturer that the weather station you intend to purchase can communicate with any of these required software packages. Please note Met Éireann cannot recommend a weather station or provide any technical assistance on its usage. To upload to WOW via the software, it may require the weather station Site ID which is available when you register your weather station on WOW, and an Authentication Key of your choice. Further information is on Start-up. WOW Sign-up link and information are here.
Commonly used WOW compatible software:
- Cumulus - https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/index.php (free)
- WeatherDisplay - http://www.weather-display.com (free trial)
- pywws - https://github.com/jim-easterbrook/pywws (free)
- Weather Snoop - http://www.weathersnoop.com/
- MeteoWare Plus for Netatmo connections - http://plus.meteoware.com/
- Netatmo2WOW - https://github.com/ekkelenkamp/netatmo2wow/ (free)
- WeeWX - http://www.weewx.com/ (free)
Further information may become available on the data format page on WOW UK.
The next step is Start-up