The years 2020-2023/2024 The BMCB network currently in operation consists of about a hundred Barani Design monitoring stations. Its main asset is the Meteoshield, which acts as a "miniature thermometer shelter" and, despite its small size, provides very good measurement results, comparable to those of its big brother, the Stevenson screen. Moreover, the station operates completely autonomously, which means it can be installed in open areas, away from disturbing influences that can make measurements less reliable. The network has expanded significantly in recent years, from about 10 monitoring stations in late 2020 to nearly 100 in early 2024. This also means that the oldest stations are now three years old. Unfortunately, all the weather stations installed in 2020 have also broken down over the years. It must be said that the number of problems has increased significantly in recent years, which is why we decided to stop offering these BARANI weather stations. You can read more in the section “Measuring equipment”. Our solution: the development of a new weather station Because of the persistent problems and no prospect of a good solution we have been working for the past year on the development of our own, new weather station "WEATHERWISE" (abbreviated to "WW") For us, a number of points are important that we keep well in mind during its development:
Things that are less or even not important to us: small size, aesthetics... The first version of the developed weather station is currently being thoroughly tested, and needless to say, outside in the elements. The test sites are located in places where the weather conditions in our country are the harshest for electronics: low temperatures, little sun, greater humidity for extended periods of time, high precipitation, snow... The Ardennes are consequently the ideal environment to thoroughly test the new stations. The locations we chose are Elsenborn/Bütgenbach (Grünen Kloster) known for its sometimes very low minimum temperatures, Losheimergraben/Büllingen near the German border because of its high altitude and in a forested area, ideal for little sunshine, as well as the locations Braunlauf/Burg-Reuland and Recht/Sankt-Vith. Winter season is almost over. On January 20, the station in Grünen Kloster/Elsenborn recorded the lowest temperature in the past 4 years: -23.0°C and just above the snow layer a respectable -26.2°C. It was the WW test station that allowed us to measure this. During this test period, two shortcomings were discovered that have been eliminated in the new (modified) version, which will be rolled out soon. The new weather stations also use the Sigfox network like the Barani Meteohelix and also transmit data every 10 minutes. Possibly other network types such as LoRa will be added in the future. Where a Barani Meteohelix had no ability to measure temperatures near or in the ground we have also added this functionality. Because we control all the steps of the new design, we can go in any direction when demand arises. Specifications of the new weather station Below you can find a first overview of the new weather station with also a comparison to the Barani-Meteohelix/MeteoWind/MeteoRain
In the near future you will hear more information here about results we obtain, as well as problems encountered and how we intend to solve them. We like transparency and strive for good quality and reliability of the weather station in combination with good (accurate) observations. Furthermore, we want to keep you posted on when we will start rolling it out. We are aiming sometime in the spring of 2024. More information? If you have any questions, let us know via our email: [email protected]
Last update: March 19, 2024 |