Observing wind direction and cloud formations in an attempt to predict the weather has been a passion for man probably since our days as wandering hunter-gatherers. With the invention of the barometer in 1643 our search for the ability to see into our weather future began to take us in a whole new direction.

Today, despite satellites, hi-tech electronic instruments and the Internet even professional weather forecasters still are often unable to accurately predict tomorrow’s local weather and the early, accurate, landfall prediction of weather phenomenon such as hurricanes is still probably years away.

The advent of reasonably priced personal weather stations combined with sophisticated software designed to record, analyze and share data over the Internet has resulted in an explosion of available real-time weather information from all around the world.

My hope is that this website will go beyond merely adding to the ever-growing pool of available data.

The purpose of this website is:

1. To help teach my middle school geography students about the importance weather plays in the formation of the world around us.

2. To provide a centralized, easy to access, link to some of the best weather information now available on the Internet.

3. To provide a source of timely and hopefully accurate weather information for my community of Petersham MA.

4. To share data and ideas with the rest of the weather enthusiast community from around the world.

How This Weather Station Works:

Weather information is collected from an array of outside sensors (wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, rainfall) located on a fixed mast on the roof. Information is sent via wired and wireless connections to the La Crosse 2135 base station.  Data from the base station is then transferred to my desktop computer where it is stored and prepared for graphical display.

Every two minutes this refined data is forwarded through my DSL internet connection to:

The Weather Exchange website for display and analysis along with the data from other personal weather stations in the local area. If you are interested in a free, user-friendly weather program that is specifically designed for your local area this program is highly recommended. It is a free download and contains no spyware.  

http://www.ambientweather.com/freedownload.html

The WeatherUnderground website for display and further analysis of Petersham weather

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMAPETER1

The Weather Matrix website for display and comparison with other personal weather stations from around the world

http://www.weathermatrix.net/members/wxstations.php3

My two weather related websites for graphical and tabular display of real-time and historical data for the Petersham MA area

 http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7m5ka/petershamweather

http://www.trak.to/weather

http://www.petershamlionsclub.org//webdocs/index.htm