Latitude: N 50° 09' 49" Longitude: W 05° 11' 53" Elevation: 168m ASL

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About the webcam and weather station

History

I originally set up a weather webcam for when I lived in Boscastle, in North Cornwall. The site went online in March 2007, orginally the webcam was a Logitech Quickcam Zoom. I decided that this was getting a bit old, and decided in April 2008 to buy the newer Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000, which was a huge improvement in picture quality.
The Boscastle weather webcam went offline on 27th May 2009, as the house in Boscastle which had been for sale had sold.

Location

The webcam and weather station are located in the hamlet of Carnkie, Helston in West Cornwall. The village is 5 miles North West of Helston, 3.5 miles west of Penryn and just south of Stithians reservoir, in the parish of Wendron.

Weather Webcam

The Weather Webcam went back online on the 9th September 2009. It is mounted on the frame of a loft room Velux window, this window provides the best view of the countryside to the south of the village.
Because it is a velux window rain drops can be seen when its raining, and snow can land on the window blocking the view.

The software used for the webcam is a payware program called Active Webcam, which uploads the webcam images to the webcam. The software used to create the timelapse videos is called MovieSalsa.

Weather Station

The Weather Station started recording figures on 5th December 2009, and is located about 167m (550ft) above sea level.

The weather station is a Watson W-8681 which records data automatically, and sends it wirelessly to a touchscreen console. This console is connected to the same computer as the webcam.

The station has the following instruments:

Anemometer
This measures the wind speed and direction.

The anemometer is located on a wooden post about four meters above the ground to get the best possible wind readings.

There is alot of exposure from most directions, however the house does shelter it a bit from the South East.

Rain Gauge
The rain gauge records precipitation which falls into it.

Inside are two small buckets which fill with rain, one at a time. Once one is full the weight causes it to tip, recording a unit of rain this then happens to the other bucket, and then to the first one again, and the process continues. Each tips is 0.3mm worth of rain.

I have modified the rain gauge slightly, using a flower pot on top to prevent any heavy from splashing out.

Thermo-Hydro Sensor
The Thermo-Hydro Sensor records temperature, pressure, and humidity.

I have built my own DIY Stevenson screen with single louvres. A tube surrounds the sensor and has a fan at the top a fan extracts any warm air build up from the sensor and out the top of the Stevenson screen. This is to minimize the effects of solar radiation on the readings.

The fan is powered by a small solar panel and the fan spins slowly even with cloudy skies.

Photos on right:
Top - The solar panel. Bottom - the fan at the top of the screen with no tube.

The software used is called Cumulus, which downloads the data from the console then uploads the data to the website, then stores the data in files on the computer.

This is a private weather station, never base important decisions or events on data from this weather station. Although every effort has been made to make the data as accurate as possible it does not meet MetOffice standards. It is proved as a guide of local weather conditions. We accept no liability for any loss which may arise from use of the data.

Copyright © Carnkie Weather 2009 - 2010.