About the weather station:                                                            

This is my weather station setup. The station is located 160' from our building, and the anemometer is mounted on top of a 20' mast, putting it 16' above the ground (4' of the mast are buried in concrete.) The white and black gizmo is called the Integrated Sensor Suite (I.S.S.) and is what houses the thermometer, rain gauge, other sensors, and wireless transmitter. All of this is solar-powered.

Located inside the building is a console that has a built-in data collector that is capable of storing at least a month's worth of data. The console is connected to our phone line via a US Robotics external modem.  I have software running on my computer here in Virginia that automatically dials in to the console every few hours, downloads the most current data, produces reports, then uploads those reports to this web site via FTP. Oh yeah, it also sends a copy of the data to N.O.A.A. (National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration) and the National Weather Service, who in turn use the data as input to their computer models, enabling them to forecast the weather more accurately. I can also dial into the console whenever I want to see real-time weather conditions.

Pretty cool, huh? Okay, only cool if you're a weather buff like me!