ARA Weather APIs

ARA offers APIs for collecting weather data from deployment sites. At present, we deployed weather stations and disdrometers at two locations, Wilson Hall and Agronomy Farm, for collecting fine-grained weather and rain related parameters. The technical specification of devices are as follows:

• Agronomy Farm

  • Davis VantagePro2 Weather Station

  • WS100 Radar Precipitation Sensor/Smart Disdrometer

• Wilson Hall

  • Davis VantagePro2

  • OTT Parsivel² Disdrometer

Davis Vantage Pro2 provides generic weather parameters such as temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and rain rate while the WS100 and OTT Parsivel disdrometers provide fine-grained weather related attributes such as rain intensity, rain drop-size distribution and weather code (indicating snow, haze, rain, etc.). Detailed description of weather parameters from each site are as follows:

Wilson Hall

Serial No.	Parameter	Unit
1	Temperature	Degree Celsius
2	Humidity	Percentage
3	Pressure	Inches
4	WindSpeed	kilometer/hour
5	WindDirection	Angles
6	RainRate	Inches
7	RainAbsolute	mm
8	RainAccumulated	mm
9	RainIntensity	mm/hour
10	SnowDepthIntensity	mm/hour
11	ParticlesDetected	Integer count
12	MORVisibility	meters
13	KineticEnergy	Joules/m2 h
14	RadarReflectivity	dBz
15	WeatherCode4677	Weather Code 4677 Table
16	WeatherCode4678	Weather Code Table 4678
17	WeatherCode4680	Weather Code 4680 Table

Agronomy Farm

Serial No.	Parameter	Unit
1	Temperature	Degree Celsius
2	Humidity	Percentage
3	Pressure	Inches
4	WindSpeed	kilometer/hour
5	WindDirection	Angles
6	RainRate	Inches
7	PrecipitationCumulative	Inches
8	PrecipitationDifferential	Inches
9	PrecipitationIntensityHr	inches/hour
10	PrecipitationIntensityMin	inches/minute
11	PrecipitationParticles	Integer count
12	PrecipitationType	0: No precipitation, 60: Liquid precipitation (rain), 70: Solid precipitation (snow), 40: Unspecified, 67: Freezing rain, 69: Sleet, 90: Hail
13	WeatherType	Weather Code 4680 Table
14	TotalDrops	Integer count
15	SnowParticles	Integer count
16	HailParticles	Integer count
17	DrizzleParticles	Integer count
18	Drops<0.5mm	Integer count
19	Drops0.5-1.0mm	Integer count
20	Drops1.0-1.5mm	Integer count
21	Drops1.5-2.0mm	Integer count
22	Drops2.0-2.5mm	Integer count
23	Drops2.5-3.0mm	Integer count
24	Drops3.0-3.5mm	Integer count
25	Drops3.5-4.0mm	Integer count
26	Drops4.0-4.5mm	Integer count
27	Drops4.5-5.0mm	Integer count
28	Drops>5.5mm	Integer count

Using the ARA Weather Library

1. Launch a container of your choice, for example, as shown in the Hello World experiment.

2. Install dependencies and ARA Wireless Python library

   • Install the dependencies git and pip.

     # apt update
     # apt install python3-pip git
     

   • Install the arawireless Python library:

     # pip install git+https://gitlab.com/aralab/arasoft/arawireless.git
     

3. Use the following statements your Python shell or within your Python script. An example usage in the Python shell is shown below. Run the following commands in the container shell.

   # python3
   >>> from araweather import weather
   >>> weather_data = weather.get_current_weather(['WilsonHall'])
   >>> print(weather_data)
   

   You can retrieve weather data from multiple sites using the same function as follows:

   >>> weather_data = weather.get_current_weather(['WilsonHall', 'AgronomyFarm'])
   >>> print(weather_data)
   

   The function get_current_weather() returns the weather parameters at the current time in a Python dictionary.