Resources

Guides to siting a weather station and observing well, and the research our pages draw on. A PDF opens here to read or download; ⌘-click or Ctrl-click opens it in a new tab.

Siting a station

Personal Weather Station – Siting US National Weather Service, for the Citizen Weather Observer Program · 2016 Where to put a weather station’s thermometer, anemometer and rain gauge: the standard heights and distances from obstructions, the compromises a rural or suburban garden forces, and photographs of good and bad siting. PDF, 8 pages Initial Guidance to Obtain Representative Meteorological Observations at Urban Sites Tim R. Oke, World Meteorological Organization (WMO/TD-No. 1250) · 2006 Observing in a city, where buildings, paving and their heat change what a station measures: choosing a site that stands for its neighbourhood, exposing each instrument, and the metadata that makes the record usable. PDF, 51 pages

Standards

Guide to Instruments and Methods of Observation, Volume I – Measurement of Meteorological Variables World Meteorological Organization (WMO-No. 8) · 2024 edition The WMO’s reference for measuring each weather variable — temperature, pressure, humidity, wind, precipitation, radiation and more: the instruments, their siting and exposure, and the uncertainty expected of them. Its precipitation chapter had a major update in this edition. PDF, 601 pages, on the WMO e-Library

Research

Certified accuracy of rainfall data as a standard requirement in scientific investigations Lanza, L. G. & Stagi, L., Advances in Geosciences 16, 43–48 · 2008 Laboratory tests from the WMO’s intercomparison of rainfall-intensity gauges: tipping buckets read 10–15 % low in heavy rain, and within ±1 % once calibrated and corrected. PDF, 6 pages· CC BY 3.0