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How to Create a MADIS Station

A personal weather station is a self-contained system of measuring devices that can provide precise data on rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity and barometric pressure. A basic weather station that connects to your computer can be purchased from a home improvement store or online retailer starting at a few hundred dollars. You can broadcast the weather data from your station to a worldwide audience. The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) is an organized network of weather monitoring stations scattered across the United States. While many of them are operated by state and local agencies, many more are personal stations set up to send data to the MADIS network. You can create your own MADIS observation station at home by connecting your personal weather station to the national MADIS network.

Things You'll Need

Personal weather station

Instructions

- 1
  Install your personal weather station according to the manufacturer's instructions. The weather station should be at least 50 feet from the nearest pavement, tree or body of water. It should be 5 feet above the ground or roof.
- 2
  Connect the weather station to a computer with Internet access according to the manufacturer's instructions. Most weather stations are designed to connect to a PC through a wireless dongle.
- 3
  Install your weather station's software according to the manufacturer's instructions.
- 4
  Fill out a Citizen Weather Observation Program (CWOP) Registration Form. Once you have received your designation number by email, enter it into the software as the station name. Change the server designation in your weather station software to one of the four CWOP servers found at www.wxqa.com/activecwd.html.
- 5
  Check to see that the information the CWOP server is receiving from your computer is correct. If it is, send an email to [email protected]. Include your designation number and request to be added to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) network. Data from your network will now be included as part of MADIS.

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