About the webcam and weather station

Location

The webcam and weather station are located in the village of Carnkie, Wendron in West Cornwall. The village is 5 miles North West of Helston, 3.5 miles west of Penryn and just south of Stithians reservoir.

Weather Webcam

The Weather webcam currently in use is a Foscam FI9805E which is a HD IP Cam and uploads images at 720p.

The software used for the webcam is a payware program called Active Webcam, which uploads the webcam images to the site. The software used to create the timelapse videos is called MovieSalsa, Images are taken even 10 seconds during hours of daylight and every minute during night.

Weather Station

The Weather Station started recording figures on 5th December 2009, and is located about 167m (550ft) above sea level.

The weather station is a Watson W-8681 which records data automatically, and sends it wirelessly to a touchscreen console. A Freeware program called Cumulus then uploads the data from the console to the site.

The station has the following instruments:

Anemometer This measures the wind speed and direction. The anemometer is mounted on a post about four meters above the ground.

Rain Gauge The rain gauge records precipitation which falls into it. Inside are two small buckets which fill with rain, one at a time. Once one is full the weight causes it to tip, recording a unit of rain this then happens to the other bucket, and then to the first one again, and the process continues. Each tip is 0.1mm worth of rain.

Thermo-Hydro Sensor The Thermo-Hydro Sensor records temperature, pressure, and humidity. I have built my own DIY Stevenson screen which the sensor sits in for more accurate recordings. The sensor sits inside a plastic tube which has fans at the top and bottom powered by a small solar panel. This allows air to flow around it, making readings more accurate.