Weather Station V1.8

Weather Station displays current weather data and forecasts collected from the Bureau of Meteorology Internet site. The display is continuously updated according to the type of data collected.

Current Tab

Readings are automatically collected from a remote controlled weather station and updated every 10 to 30 minutes.

• Temperature, humidity and barometric pressure are displayed in standard units.
• The rain reading records the accumulated total since 9:00AM. The reading is reset to zero at this time.
• The wind display shows the direction of the wind and the wind speed in the form of "Average to Gust", where average is the average over the last 10 minute period and gust is the maximum recorded in the period.
• The Forecast panel lists the Weather Bureau short forecast for the current day.

Graph Tab

Provides a graph of six weather parameters; temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, rainfall (in millimetres per hour), wind direction and average wind speed. You can hover the mouse pointer over the graph to see the precise reading at any particular time in the past.

The data is collected while Weather Station is running, so for this tab to be useful the program must be running continuously over several days. Blank spaces in a graph indicate that Weather Station was stopped or that it could not access the Bureau of Meteorology Internet site. Also, to obtain a sensible graph the computer's clock should also be set near to the correct time (within 10 minutes).

The Graph tab can be hidden ("File" - "Options…" menu item) to reduce screen clutter for users who only intermittently use the program.

Forecast Tab

This displays the short forecast for the next six days. Forecasts are automatically updated four times a day.

Satellite Tab

Provides the latest satellite image updated approximately 6 times a day. Hover the mouse pointer over the image to see the time that the image was recorded.

This tab can be disabled ("File" - "Options…" menu item) to reduce the program startup time for users with slow Internet access.

Synoptic Tab

Provides the current synoptic chart. This tab can also be disabled to reduce the program startup time.

Displaying Other Information

The "Other…" menu option provides for the display of a variety of information from the Bureau of Meteorology Internet site. This includes rainfall radar maps and full sized satellite images and synoptic charts. The data is presented in a window which can be adjusted in size and by using the scroll bars, these adjustments are automatically saved for each type of data so, once set, the window will retain the optimal settings.

Setting Options

Click on "File" menu then "Options". This provides for the configuration of log files and hiding of the Graph, Satellite and Synoptic Tabs.

The "Record Observations to a File" option instructs Weather Station to record every reading to an Excel compatible comma delimited file (.csv) which can be loaded into a spreadsheet for manipulation and graphing.

The "Enable Debugging Log" option will record details of the web pages loaded and data found, this is of most use when debugging the configuration file (see configuration below).

Note that Weather Station will append to any existing log files rather than overwrite them.

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Configuration

All configuration parameters are held in the file "Weather Station.ini" located in the same directory as the program file. This file defines the URLs of the various web pages and where in the web page the required data can be found. Refer to the configuration file for details of the layout and syntax.

When Weather Station displays a value of "Error" instead of a correct reading it indicates that the program failed to locate the information, the cause may be that the configuration file is incorrect, or that the Internet site is down, or that you are not connected to the Internet.