In my youth, I had a friend who was a weather enthusiast. He had his own backyard weather station, and in a little black log book, every day, he would dutifully record wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and rainfall. I thought it was tremendously geeky and didn’t understand his passion for it. But I had to admit to being impressed when he started charting the data and actually learning something useful about our local weather dynamics. It was my first direct exposure to citizen science.
Here in the 21st century, you can create your own backyard weather station that is computer-controlled, where all of the data is automatically captured and stored for later analysis. No more little black log book. Weather enthusiast Adrie Sentosa details his Arduino Weather Station (AWS) in this Instructable project.
Here are the components Adrie used and the estimated cost for each:
- Arduino, e.g. Arduino Uno Rev3 ($30)
- DHT11 Humidity and temperature sensor (~$5)
- BMP185 Barometer (~$6)
- Rain Drop sensor module (~$2)
- Soil Humidity sensor module (~$2)
- Breadboard or Custom ProtoShield
- Jumper Wire
- Enclosure of your choice
The resulting AWS can capture data on air pressure, temperature, rainfall, and soil and air humidity. Once you have the components in hand, assembling your station is simply a question of wiring everything together as shown in the project’s instructions. And then, downloading the Arduino included sketch.
You can see the full instructions, download the station code, and read community members’ comments on this project’s Instructable’s page. This is only one of dozens of weather station projects that you’ll find on Instructables. You can view all of them here.
ADVERTISEMENT
