What are Meteo objects

Overview

A Meteo object is a concatenation of meteorological properties collected by meteorological stations. Similar to other Measurement Points, the Meteo object has a user-specified name, or description to facilitate identification by the user. Furthermore a user can set a Location, which can be used to specify the position of the collected data. A Group is a user-specified collection of objects to which a Meteo object can be assigned. The initial group can be specified during object creation but can later be altered by using the admin menu and choosing the Groups viewset. A Meteo object can belong to multiple groups. The Source for each property can be set independently, this means that a user selects which property is collected from which station.

We import different KNMI stations as Meteo objects. These are either imported as a Weather, Weather PS (Precipitation Station) or Weather MS (Meteorological Stations) measurement point.

Water Node Coupling - If you are coupling a Meteo Station as a source for a water sensor you should always use the Weather - <STATION NAME> as a source. As these contain the Baro pressure needed to calculate water level. The PS and MS stations are stations used to plot precipitation and evapotranspiration. When in doubt, using the Meteo -> Measurement Points page you should be able to view what each station is reporting as current values. You are looking for a current value of pressure.

If you would like to use a Meteo object but it is not added to the portal please contact support.

Properties

Type	Property	M/O	RW	Function	Default
General	Description	M	RW	Logical name for the Meteo object.	None
Source	Node ID	M	RW	Coupling to a node data source.	None
	Date/time	M	RW	A date and time from which the source is coupled	None
Location	Location	O	RW	A location for this Meteo Object.	None
Group	Group	O	RW	Assign this Meteo object to a group	None

A Meteo object has the following timeseries:

Name	M/O	Unit	Resolution
Temperature	O	° Celcius	int16u	Temperature at 1.5m height
Humidity	O	%	int16u	Relative Humidity
Dewpoint	O	° Celcius	int16u	Dewpoint in celcius, calculated from Pressure, Humidity and Temperature.
Pressure	O	hPa	int16u	Absolute atmospheric pressure.
Visibility	O	m	int16u	Maximum visible distance.
Rainfall	O	mm	int16u	Amount of rain that fell since the last update.
Precipitation	O	mm	int16u	Amount of rain that fell during a single day.
Precipitation 9 day sum	O	mm	in16u	Amount of rain that fell in the previous 9 days, if there is a gap in the data the entire series is discarded.
Evapotranspiration	O	mm	int16u	Reference evapotranspiration (Makkink) over an entire day, meaning the amount of moisture withdrawn from a grassy (10cm length) lot.
Wind Speed	O	m/s	int16u	Average wind speed over the measured period.
Wind Direction	O	° Degrees (0 - 360)	int16u	Average wind direction over the measured period.

(Dewpoint and Precipitation 9 day sum are calculated based on other properties such as Temperature, Humidity and Precipitation)

Integration in viewsets

An example of using a Meteo object is seen below: 

The dropdown widget allows a user to select a Meteo object to be coupled to another domain object. Using it a user can search based on name or scroll through the listed options.

Viewing a Meteo Object;

Editing a Meteo Object:

Since not all Meteo stations have the same capabilities, a user might want to combine data from multiple Meteo objects to fill in the blanks. This is done by selecting a Meteo source for a property that's currently lacking one. A user does need to note the time since when the source coupling should be done as data before that moment will not be shown. 

Integration in different measurement-point types

Other Measurement Points can use Meteo object to either validate or improve their readings. For instance Sound Measurement Points can use Rainfall as a way to discard rain related sounds.

Data Sources

A Meteo object uses data from various stations, those stations have varying capabilities, this implies some attributes may be missing and the update interval might be radically different. This is also the reason why a user can set a source per property, so less complete stations can have their data filled in by nearby stations. 

Type	Source	Amount	Update	Properties	Identifier	Description
Meteorological stations	KNMI	35	Daily, 0:00, up to two days delay	Precipitation, Evapotranspiration	weather- (followed by 0 - 400)	Automated stations which report the most kinds of data albeit at a low update rate (daily)
Precipitation stations	KNMI	325*	Daily, 8:00, up to a month delay	Precipitation	weather- (followed by 1000 - 2000)	Simplified stations measuring only precipitation (snow, hail and rain).
High Frequency meteorological stations	KNMI	35	Every 10 minutes	Temperature, Humidity, Dewpoint, Pressure, Visibility, Rainfall, Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Condition	weather- (followed by 6000 - 6400)	The same as the automated stations but they output high frequency data now.
High Frequency meteorological stations	KMI	1	Every 10 minutes	Temperature, Rainfall, Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Condition	weather-brussel	Automated weather station providing common data.

*At the time of writing there are 325 active stations. There are more inactive precipitation stations (haven't reported anything in months or even years) which can be added to a portal on customer request.

Map of meteorological stations

Map of precipitation stations