About the Barking Spider Weather Station
This weather station is privately owned and operated. It is not affiliated with any government agency. The data on this site should not be used to base important decisions that could result in harm to people or property. The station is located at a private residence in Castro Valley, CA, an unincorporated part of Alameda county.
This station is powered by a Oregon Scientific Professional Weather Center (Model VMR200A). It contains an anemometer with windspeed and direction, rain gauge, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and barometer. My Weather data shown online is collected from the weather station using Virtual Weather Station. The data is collected every second to a Windows computer and the web site (stats and graphs pages) are updated at least every 10 minutes.
The Temperature, Humidity, Rain Sensor, and Anometer assembly is mounted to a support pole rising above a pergola roof. It is wireless and solar powered (with battery backup). This location is not optimal, I probably have a CWOP siting score under 10.
About The Weather Pages on this Website
This site layout is based on a template design purchased from JustDreamweaver.
The weather section utilizs heavily the contributions of several individuals listed below. They did all the hard work, and many thanks. I had to tweak several portions of the code to get it to fit within my own template. Its a good way to learn php and css!!
But seriously, this section would not exist but for their hard work, plus the work of many other contribitors at WXForum.net
Special thanks to Kevin Reed at TNET Weather for sharing his weather php scripts.
Special thanks to Mike Challis of Long Beach WA for CSS styling help with these templates.
Special thanks go to Ken True of Saratoga-Weather.org for the AJAX conditions display, dashboard and integration of the TNET Weather common PHP site design for this site.
SteelSeries Gauge Scripts (version 2.5.9) by Mark Crossley
Gauges drawn using Gerrit Grunwald's SteelSeries JavaScript library
Shared Weather Data
I share station data via a direct feed to the following weather network:
Weather Underground:KCACASTR13
Castro Valley, CA
Useful Links
- WXForum.net
- Citizen Weather Observer Program
- Weather Underground Personal Station Signup
- WeatherForYou Signup Page
- AnythingWeather Signup Page
- AWEKAS Signup Page
Weather Education
- Glossary of Meteorology
- Federal Meteorological Handbook No. 1
- S'COOL Cloud Types Audio/Visual Tutorial
- Web Weather for Kids
- NOAA Education Resources
- NWS Weather Website for Kids
- USA Today - Weather Basics
Weather Station Info
- CWOP Station Setup Guide (PDF)
- Cumulus Weather Station software
- Weather-Display Weather Station Software
- Weather Watch Forums (Weather Display)
- Ambient Weather: Station Reviews and Install Guide, Virtual Weather Station software
- Davis Instruments Weather stations, WeatherLink software
- La Crosse Technology
- Oregon Scientific