About this site

Eric Olthwaite's personal weather station site is a hobby site. It is not a 'professional' system with calibrated instruments in ideal locations, so please don't rely on it for making important decisions!

The weather station is located in Gooseberry Hill, Western Australia. It is a Davis Instruments Wireless Vantage Pro2™ Plus (VP2+) with a 24-Hr Fan Aspirated Radiation Shield (#6163). The wind sensors (vane and anemometer) and solar sensors (radiation and UV) have been positioned away from the main unit with their data transmitted via a solar powered wireless transmitter (#6332). Data from these VP2+ sensors are collected by a WeatherLink Live (#6100). Air quality is monitored by a Davis AirLink (#7210) measuring outdoor particulate matter.

Location Map

A little history

August 2015. A birthday present from my wife. I had asked for a remote temperature sensor so I could sit in my study and know just how hot it is outside. Instead of that simple device, I received a full weather station. The WMR200 has temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind sensors that transmit wirelessly to a base station.

September 2015. After a few hiccups - mainly because of my limited capacities - the station and sensors are talking to one another quite nicely and data recording begins in earnest.

October 2015. Started using Cumulus software to capture and store the data from the station on a laptop running Windows.

January 2016. After a few more hiccups - this is a redundant comment as there are always hiccups; and the primary reason is always the same - the Cumulus-style website is established to display the data.

Why Eric Olthwaite? Well, having got this far, my family were only too keen to remind me I was becoming (had become?) a little (a lot?) like Eric Olthwaite in The Testing of Eric Olthwaite. This was one the family's favourite episodes in the BBC series Ripping Yarns, written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Eric had an abiding interest in the weather, and shovels; until his family got fed up with him and ran away from home. There are some good snippets on YouTube.

June 2016. At great expense to the management, a Raspberry Pi computer was purchased. This is a "credit card" pc running under Linux. It now runs the Cumulus software 24/7, uploading to the website.

August 2017. Started developing a Wilmslow-style website - the one you are reading now. This can display virtually all of the data captured by Eric as well as other stuff. It involved establishing a MySQL database for storing and retreiving data.

January 2019. The WMR200 station was replaced by a Davis Vantage Pro 2 Plus (VP2+) which added solar radiation and UV sensors. Sensor data was transmitted wirelessly to the "console".

March 2020. Rain gauge tipping buckets mechanism replaced by a tipping spoon.

November 2022. The console - collecting the wirelessly transmitted data from the VP2+ sensors - was replaced by a Davis WeatherLink Live (6100). An air quality monitor (Davis AirLink 7210) was installed to measure levels of outdoor particulate matter.

January 2023. The wind and solar sensors were separated from the main unit and relocated to a better position above the roof line and connected to a separate wireless transmitter. Shortly after, the wind vain and anemometer were replaced.