Bathgate Weather

Bathgate Weather, perhaps not surprisingly, is located within the town of Bathgate, West Lothian. The town has a population of approximately 23,000 people and is situated within the central belt of Scotland, adajcent to the M8 motorway (between Junctions 3A and 4). Bathgate lies 20 miles to the West of Edinburgh and 28 miles to the East of Glasgow.

Edinburgh Airport, a source of imported weather data, is 13 miles to the East of Bathgate.

The Weather Station is situated within a small housing development to the North-West of the town, close to Bathgate Sports Centre.

Positioned on the West facing slopes of the Bathgate Hills the Weather Station is 165 metres above sea level. The hills rising to the East, and North-East, climb to a height of 312 metres at Cairnpapple Hill - the location of a Neolithic site dating back to 3,500 BC.

As with most urban Weather Stations following the recommended sensor placement guidelines is challenging. However, each of the Bathgate Weather sensors have been sited in a position to provide the best readings possible within the local environment.

The Weather Station...

The Bathgate Weather Station has a total of 29 sensors monitoring the local environment 24 hours a day. The sensors are associated with four Davis units - the primary weather station is a Davis Vantage Pro2 (VP2), with a secondary Davis Vantage Vue (VUE) weather station. In addition, a Davis Airlink (AL) unit measures local Air Quality and a Davis WeatherLink Live (WLL) unit ensures weather data is captured and stored, as well as providing three further indoor sensors.

The specificatons of each of the weather station sensors is provided in the adjacent tables.

Augmenting the data directly collected via the station sensors many more additional weather parameters can be calculated, such as Dewpoint, Wind Chill, Hours of Sunshine etc. This enables an extremely detailed view of the current weather conditions in Bathgate to be displayed on the website.

Davis Vantage Pro2 (VP2): The primary weather station of Bathgate Weather. This system provides the key weather information from three transmitting units. The Temperature, Humidity, Rainfall, Solar Radiation and UV Index sensors are located within the Intregrated Sensor Suite or ISS. The ISS is located on the rear garden fence, 1.5 metres above the ground. Wind information is provided by a separate transmitter, the Anemometer is located 2 metres above the roof line which is 10 metres above the ground. The final transmitter provides the Ground and Decking Temperatures, the Soil Temperature and Moisture (both 10cm below the ground surface) and finally the Leaf Wetness reading.

The Barometric Pressure, Indoor Temperature and Humidity information is supplied by the indoor console unit which receives all of the data transmitted from the outdoor sensors.

Davis Vantage Vue (VUE): This secondary weather station acts as a backup to the primary VP2 station. Situated in the same location as the VP2 it provides Temperature, Humidity, Rainfall, and Wind data. As the VUE wind sensors are located in the same unit the values obtained are much lower than the VP2 as they are in a more sheltered location. The Vue wind sensors are 2 metres above the ground but only 10 metres from buildings which block the prevailing South-Westerly wind. The rain gauge also appears to read approximately 5% to 10% more rainfall than the VP2.

As with the VP2 the Barometric Pressure, Indoor Temperature and Humidity information is supplied by the indoor console unit.

Davis Airlink (AL): The Airlink unit is located at the front of the house within a sheltered porch area. The main function of this unit is to report on the local Air Quality - however it also contains additional Temperature and Humidity sensors. The unit records the levels of Particulate Matter (PM) detected in the air at three different sizes - 1 µg/m³, 2.5 µg/m³ and 10 µg/m³. The current Air Quality Index is calculated from the levels of 2.5 particules and shown on a scale of 1 to 10.

Due to the sheltered location of the Airlink unit the Temperature readings can vary from that recorded by the VP2 and Vue units - this is especially noticable during settled weather.

Davis WeatherLink Live (WLL): This unit is primarily used to receive weather data directly from all of the other units and send this information to Davis WeatherLink Cloud Storage. It offers three additional indoor sensors, Barometric Pressure, Temperature and Humidity.

Davis Vantage Pro2 (VP2)
Sensor	Update	Resolution	Range	+/-
Outside Temperature	10 secs	0.1 °C	-40 to +65 °C	0.3 °C
Outside Humidity	60 secs	1%	1 to 100%	2% RH
Rainfall	20 secs	0.2 mm	to 999.8 mm	> 3% or 0.2mm
Wind Speed	2.5 secs	1.0 mph	0 to 200 mph	> 2 mph or 5%
Wind Direction	2.5 secs	1°	1 to 360°	3°
Barometric Pressure	60 secs	0.1 mb	540 to 1,100 mb	1.0 mb
Solar Radiation	60 secs	1.0 W/m³	0 to 1,800 W/m³	5%
UV Index	60 secs	1 to 16	0.1	5%
Ground Temperature	10 secs	1.0 °C	-40 to +65 °C	0.5 °C
Decking Temperature	10 secs	1.0 °C	-40 to +65 °C	0.5 °C
Soil Temperature	10 secs	1.0 °C	-40 to +65 °C	0.5 °C
Soil Moisture	90 secs	1.0 cb	0 to 200 cb	---
Leaf Wetness	50 secs	1	1 to 15	0.5
Indoor Temperature	60 secs	0.1 °C	0 to +60 °C	0.3 °C
Indoor Humidity	60 secs	1%	1 to 100%	2% RH

Davis Vue (VUE)
Sensor	Update	Resolution	Range	+/-
Outside Temperature	10 secs	0.1 °C	-40 to +65 °C	0.5 °C
Outside Humidity	50 secs	1%	1 to 100%	2% RH
Rainfall	20 secs	0.2 mm	to 6,553 mm	> 4% or 0.2 mm
Wind Speed	2.5 secs	1 mph	0 to 200 mph	> 2 mph or 5%
Wind Direction	2.5 secs	1°	1 to 360°	3°
Barometric Pressure	60 secs	0.1 mb	540 to 1,100 mb	1.0 mb
Indoor Temperature	60 secs	0.1 °C	0 to +60 °C	0.3 °C
Indoor Humidity	60 secs	1%	1 to 100%	2% RH

Davis Airlink (AL)
Sensor	Update	Resolution	Range	+/-
Temperature	60 secs	0.1 °C	-40 to +60 °C	0.3 °C
Humidity	60 secs	0.1%	0.1 to 100%	2% RH
PM 1, 2.5 & 10	60 secs	1 µg/m³	---	10 µg/m³

Davis WeatherLink Live (WLL)
Sensor	Update	Resolution	Range	+/-
Indoor Temperature	60 secs	0.1 °C	0 to +60 °C	0.3 °C
Indoor Humidity	60 secs	0.1%	1 to 100%	2% RH
Barometric Pressure	60 secs	0.1 mb	540 to 1,100 mb	1.0 mb

The Bathgate Weather Website...

The Bathgate Weather Website includes a complex array of weather data feeds, which update the website 24 hours a day. Data is captured from the weather station units by two dedicated servers and transferred to the website via FTP. Both servers run Weather Display - a software package which processes the raw weather data and directly transfers that data to the website.

From the VP2 weather station, primary weather information is transferred every few seconds giving a view of the weather in almost real time. Other items such as maximum and minimum values are transferred in a separate feed every minute - so there may be a slight lag in live weather data being reflected in the max/min values, especially during rapid changes in conditions. The majority of the local data on the website is provided by these two data feeds.

Some of the values shown on the Observations page originate from the Vue weather station as a comparison to the VP2 data. Generally the values between the VP2 and Vue stations are compariable, however, deviations can appear especially during periods of rapid weather change. As noted previously, the wind and rainfall sensors display the largest differences.

The Air Quality data feed updates every minute and provides the information for the websites Air Quality display. Data is extracted directly from the AirLink unit via an automated program before being FTP'd to the website. A similar method is used to update the website with data from the WeatherLink Live unit.

Automated programs provide additional data feeds to power the National weather page and graphs on the Observations page. Weather supplied from the Edinburgh station is shown on the main page - which includes the Cloud and Visibility information. This information updates less frequently and there can be a delay of over 2 hours in this data.

A webcam also sends an image directly to the Website every 10 seconds enabling a clear visual view of the current weather.

Data feeds from time to time can be interupted. An indicator in the header of each page highlights any issues which can then be viewed in detail on the System Status page. Usually any interuptions clear with a few minutes.

The website is best viewed on a screen at least 1200px wide.

The Location...

The Weather Station...

The Bathgate Weather Website...

Important Note...