Background
FIDO maintain and operate 5 weather stations on K’gari, located at Eurong, Kingfisher, Happy Valley, Cathedrals and Orchid Beach. The Happy Valley weather station was established first in November 2015 and with the last being Kingfisher in August 2019.
You can see all the details at: K’gari Weather Observations
The driver for the weather stations came from John Sinclair, who knows we need to monitor the environment to determine the impacts. Rainfall is a significant factor in the Fraser Island ecology, as it is everywhere. John’s initial requirement was to collect rainfall data, but after some quick research and design discussions, it was determined that using a David Vantage Vue weather station, we could cost effectively monitor many aspects of weather, including:
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Barometric Pressure
- Rainfall
- Rainfall Rate
- Windspeed
- Wind Direction
The smarts for the system was developed by Alex with the details available here: a beagle among the dingos: the first online weather station for fraser island. Not only did Alex volunteer his time and expertise, but he has made the whole solution Open Source, which is pretty cool. People can use this work to make their own online weather station anywhere they want to.
Keith Sinclair made a presentation about the project at the 2017 FIDO Conference, Citizen Science on Fraser Island with FIDO
Ongoing Maintenance and Operations
Keeping the K’gari Weather stations online and working takes a little effort, especially dealing with the harsh environment of salt spray and metal. The small lithium backup battery needs to be replaced every two years and the poles need to be inspected for rust and replaced as needed.
The software needs little maintenance, but new features can be added, like the recent addition of Windy.com to include forecasts to the observation data.
Funding
K’gari Weather has been funded partially by Grants, in particular the Gambling Community Benefit Fund, also by donations of time, resources and money for maintenance efforts, and FIDO contributes funds as the need arrises.
Supporters
K’gari Weather would not be possible without support from the following: