A desktop weather station is a device that can receive regional weather information every minute, among other things. Read on to know more.
Poushali Ganguly
A desktop weather station shows the inside and outside temperature, the barometric pressure, humidity (with trend indicator), minimum and maximum indoor temperatures and humidity history as well.
It gives additional information about the wind speed, wind direction, gust wind, wind chill, dew-point temperature, heat index, UV index, rain level of the last twenty-four hours, sunrise and sunset times, and the visibility and moon phase.
It also has an alarm clock with a crescendo or a melodic alarm - both with snooze facility -- though this feature differs with every software. It is your personal weather watcher, which gives you information about even minor weather changes.
Its basic function is to retrieve local weather from the Internet and store it in the user's Windows System Tray. Whenever you want, with just one click of a mouse button, the latest weather update can be viewed. Some stations have a very interactive interface and provide hourly and daily forecast as well as satellite maps and international weather also.
The major components include the weather station, power cord and 4AA batteries. Once the batteries are added so that the signal is not lost due to power outage, the AC adapter can be plugged in and the software is all set to function and to bring you all the details.
Until it receives a signal it would not be able to show any information about the external weather but the internal measurements would show immediately depending on the strength of the signal. If the signal strength is strong, the weather station will show information on the same day within minutes, else it might take up to 24 hours to show the results.
In case there is an overlapping of signal coverage, it would show the information provided by the strongest signal by default.
Users can also barge in to another area if they feel that the weather of that place is more representative. Even if the device does not give you external weather information, consider moving it to some other place where it would be more accessible to the radio waves. They usually work with their respective service providers like the radio stations.
The weather station company will give out the integrated data over the FM radio network and the former would receive these signals. The station's official site receives and integrates the data that is again enumerated for the local market and send to the radio network through the radio towers in the respective networks.
The information is broadcasted by the radio stations, which the station receives and gives you updates every two minutes. Weather stations use a mouse-tail type antenna to receive signal and it is advisable to keep it near the window so that it receives better and quicker signals.
Advantages
The main advantage is that it records information of the past three days, the precipitation probability and the air quality reading. It gives quality and detailed content and is user-friendly. It is easy to adjust the settings, moreover it is not required most of the time to know about them since all the information desired is on the main display screen.
If at any point in time severe weather approaches, it emits signals that translate into warning messages. These signals are received directly by the National Weather Service. The monitor displays hour, minute and seconds with U.S. time zone designation and the days of the week in five languages.