Weather Instruments
An Anemometer is a device for measuring the wind speed, and is one
instrument used in a weather station. The term is derived from the Greek
word anemos, meaning wind. The first known description of an anemometer
was given by Leon Battista Alberti in around 1450..
Anemometers can be divided into two classes: those that measure the
wind's velocity, and those that measure the wind's pressure; but as there is a
close connection between the pressure and the velocity, an anemometer
designed for one will give information about both.
A barograph is a recording aneroid barometer. It produces a paper or
foil chart called a barogram that records the barometric pressure over time.
Barographs use one or more aneroid cells acting through a gear or lever train
to drive a recording arm that has at its extreme end either a scribe or a pen.
A scribe records on smoked foil while a pen records on paper using ink, held
in a knib. The recording material is mounted on a cylindrical drum which is
rotated slowly by clockwork. Commonly, the drum makes one revolution per
day, per week, or per month and the rotation rate can often be selected by
the user.
A barometer is an instrument used to measure atmospheric pressure.
It can measure the pressure exerted by the atmosphere by using water, air,
or mercury. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the
weather. Numerous measurements of air pressure are used within surface
weather analysis to help find surface troughs, high pressure systems, and
frontal boundaries.
Hygrometers are instruments used for measuring relative humidity. A
simple form of a hygrometer is specifically known as a psychrometer and
consists of two thermometers, one of which includes a dry bulb and one of
which includes a bulb that is kept wet to measure wet-bulb temperature.
Modern electronic devices use temperature of condensation, changes
in electrical resistance, and changes in electrical capacitance to measure
humidity changes.
Radar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves
to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed
objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and
terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as
an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. The term has since entered
the English language as a standard word, radar, losing the capitalization.
Radar was originally called RDF (Radio Direction Finder, now used as a totally
different device) in the United Kingdom, in order to preserve the secrecy of
its ranging capability.
A radar system has a transmitter that emits microwaves or radio
waves. These waves are in phase when emitted, and when they come into
contact with an object are scattered in all directions. The signal is thus partly
reflected back and it has a slight change of wavelength (and thus
frequency) if the target is moving. The receiver is usually, but not always, in
the same location as the transmitter. Although the signal returned is usually
very weak, the signal can be amplified through use of electronic techniques
in the receiver and in the antenna configuration. This enables radar to detect
objects at ranges where other emissions, such as sound or visible light, would
be too weak to detect. Radar uses include meteorological detection
of precipitation, measuring ocean surface waves, air traffic
control, police detection of speeding traffic, determining the speed of
baseballs and by the military.
A rain gauge is a type of instrument used by meteorologists and
hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of liquid precipitation (as
opposed to solid precipitation that is measured by a snow gauge) over a set
period of time.
The first known records of rainfalls were kept by the Ancient
Greeks about 500 B.C. This was followed 100 years later by people
in India using bowls to record the rainfall. The readings from these were
correlated against expected growth, and used as a basis for land taxes. In
the Arthashastra, used for example in Magadha, precise standards were set
as to grain production. Each of the state storehouses was equipped with a
standardized rain gauge to classify land for taxation purposes.
A snow gauge is a type of instrument used
by meteorologists and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of
solid precipitation (as opposed to liquid precipitation that is measured by
a rain gauge) over a set period of time.
The snow gauge consists of two parts, a copper catchments container and
the funnel shaped gauge itself. The actual gauge is mounted on a pipe
outdoors and is approximately 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) high, while the container is
51.5 cm (201/4 in) long.
A thermometer is a device that
measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different
principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature
sensor (e.g. the bulb on a mercury thermometer in which some physical
change occurs with temperature, plus some means of converting this
physical change into a value (e.g. the scale on a mercury thermometer).
Thermometers increasingly use electronic means to provide a digital display
or input to a computer.
A weather or sounding balloon is a balloon (specifically a type
of high altitude balloon) which carries instruments aloft to send back
information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity by means
of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde. To
obtain wind data, they can be tracked by radar, radio direction finding, or
navigation systems (such as the satellite based Global Positioning
System also known as a GPS).
A weather vane is an instrument for showing the direction of the
wind. They are typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest
point of a building.
Although partly functional, weather vanes are generally decorative,
often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the
points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows and
horses. Not all weather vanes have pointers.
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