Weather Station Information, Maps, & Pictures
This web site features current conditions and archived weather data from my home weather station in Oakland, NJ, located about 25 miles NNW of New York city. The station is located at an elevation of 280 feet in a valley, with ridges running from southwest-northeast to the west and east.Here is a map showing the location of Oakland, NJ, relative to New York City and northern New Jersey, courtesy Google Maps:
Here is the location of the weather station on a zoomed-in topo map, shown by the dark green square with the arrow pointing towards it. The other dark green square is the location of the previous weather station used for this site. The station and location change was made on November 3, 2008.
Here is some quick information about the microclimate at the station location:
The Prevailing wind direction for most of the year is Southwest, which is consistent with the southwest to northeast orientation of the Ramapo Valley.
The strongest winds are usually from the westerly directions - SW, W, and NW. Strong winds occasionally occur from the N and S as well. Generally, easterly winds are less common and not as strong as westerly winds are at the station.
Morning lows are often colder than surrounding areas, because the valley location is prime for radiational cooling.
Humidity and dew point are usually a bit higher than surrounding areas- another factor of the valley location.
Weather Station Hardware & Software
The Weather Station in use is a Wireless Davis Vantage Pro 2 with Fan-Aspirated Radiation Shield (Model #6153). It measures atmospheric qualities such as temperature, wind speed & direction, dew point, humidity, air pressure, wind chill, rainfall, and more. While the original station was installed on December 30, 2005, it was not connected to a computer until February 6, 2006. Thus, 2/6/06 is the starting date of the station's archived weather data.
The weather station reports wirelessly to the Vantage Pro 2 console, which displays data generated by the station. The Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS), which measures temperature, humidity, rainfall, and dewpoint, along with the the Anemometer Transmitter Kit, which sends data from the anemometer and wind vane (measures wind speed & direction), both transmit their data to the station console. Attached to the console is the Davis DataLogger, which is connected to the computer via a serial cable.
On the computer, several programs are used to connect to the weather station. These include:
VirtualVP: Splits up the COM port in use by weather station into four virtual COM ports, so that more than one weather station software package can be used simultaneously with the station.
WxSolution: The primary weather station software in use. It is used to update the weather conditions on most of the pages of this site, and to upload to both CWOP and PWSweather.com. It is also used as the climatological database for the station. The archived LCD reports on this site are examples of the very detailed climate data that WxSolution creates.
WeatherLink: Serves as a secondary climate database.
Cumulus: Sends live weather data (every 2 seconds) to the "Live Weather" page of this site. Also used for the 24-hr weather graphs on this site and uploads the station's data to Weather Underground every 10 minutes.
Station Relocation
On November 3, 2008, Ramapo Valley Weather moved to a new location about 200 yards East-Northeast of the original location. Here are some statistics comparing the two stations and their respective locations:
Original Station (December 30, 2005 - November 2, 2008)
Elevation: 272 feet
Anemometer height above roof: 3.5 feet
Anemometer height above ground: 33 feet
Integrated Sensor Suite height above ground: 7 feet
New Station (November 3, 2008 - )
Elevation: 280 feet
Anemometer height above roof: 6 feet
Anemometer height above ground: 39 feet
Integrated Sensor Suite height above ground: 7 feet
Pictures of the Weather Station
The Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) in the backyard, looking northwest (7/18/10):
The Anemometer on the roof, looking north (note the anemometer transmitter kit near the window on the right) (7/18/10):
Close-up pictures of the weather station (11/23/08):
ISS
Anemometer
Timeline of Weather Station Installation
12/30/05: Anemometer installed 3.5 feet above roofline, 30 feet above ground level.
1/1/06: Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) installed 7 feet above ground.
1/6/06: Anemometer Transmitter Kit installed so the anemometer can report to the console.
2/6/06: Datalogger arrives from Davis, and is installed. WeatherLink software is also installed. Station begins reporting to Weather Underground through WeatherLink, under the station ID of KNJOAKLA6.
3/17/06: Station begins uploading to CWOP/APRS through WeatherLink, under the station ID of CW5346.
3/19/06: WxSolution is first used. It takes over the uploads to both Weather Underground and CWOP/APRS, replacing WeatherLink.
4/13/06: First day of continuous weather reporting to the website (At the temporary host location).
5/1/06: First day of weather reporting to the new, permanent host location.
6/7/06: Serial Datalogger arrives from Davis to replace the USB Datalogger, which was faulty and had frequently resulted in a loss of communication. Serial datalogger is known for its better reliabilty than the USB version.
11/3/08: Ramapo Valley Weather moves to its new location about 200 yards East-Northeast of its original location. The new station is a Davis Vantage Pro 2 of the same model as the previous station (model #6153).