Explained: Weather Monitoring Using IoT

Source: MDPI

“Well if you think the internet has changed your life, think again because the Internet of Things is about to change it all over again”

The Internet of Things is becoming one of the biggest and upcoming trends in the current pandemic scenario. The Internet has connected us with a lot of things and currently, IoT (Internet of Things), a part of the internet has connected not just information and people but also all the things around us.

The Internet of things describes physical objects with sensors, objects with processing ability, software that stores the data in the internet’s spaces, and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks.

What is an IoT-based Weather Monitoring System and why the use of IoT in this system?

IoT based Weather Monitoring System is a system that involves acquiring weather and environment data and climatic changes using advanced electronic sensors. This sensed data is then sent to the web server via the internet for real-time weather monitoring and storage of data for future analysis and study. The stored data can be accessed from the cloud or other spaces for future reference.  

• Ease of monitoring your local weather conditions in real-time from anywhere in the world you are which is one of the greatest advantages over the current analogue system.

• For storing weather, environment and climatic data for both short and long term for the purpose of studying their pattern and changes caused in them.

• It helps to understand how human-induced climate change affected your local weather in real-time compared to others.

• Easy to make the type of setup for monitoring local atmospheric conditions and microclimates for weather forecasting and prediction. Not only microclimates but also macroclimatic changes. 

Sensors Used for Monitoring Weather

We can find a wide range of electronic sensors used in weather monitoring systems depending on the kind of application and the person in need of this monitoring.

For example, farmers, biologists, and naturalists need to know the temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture, rainfall etc. to enhance their crop production, how variations in climate are occurring compared to the past, and the following type of sensors are utilized to obtain the data:

• Temperature sensor.

• Humidity/hygrometer sensor.

• Soil moisture sensor.

• Rain sensor 

For a pilot who is in charge of aviation, they need to know wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, visibility etc. before taking off, since one miscalculation of those parameters and that ride might be their last ride. They use the following sensors:

• Barometric sensor – Sensor for measuring atmospheric pressure.

• Anemometer – Sensor for measuring wind speed.

• Rain sensor.

• Visibility sensor – Sensor for measuring visibility during snow, rain, storm and other harsh climates.

Weather Monitoring Using IoT Block Diagram

Source: MifraTech

The above diagram is our proposed block diagram for weather monitoring systems using IoT. We are using the NODMCU LoLin controller as a controller to control all the sensors and actuators used in the system. We are using the DHT11 sensor to detect temperature and humidity, the BMP180 sensor is used to detect pressure, and the MQ135 gas sensor is used to detect air quality.

In order know detect whether it's raining or not we used a raindrop sensor since rain is one of the main factors to be monitored. The NODMCU LoLin controller has an inbuilt wifi module and is used to send all the collected data to the Blynk server. We can also monitor this system through Blynk on any android phone or on any device connected to the Internet and where we can see all the sensors data in the Blynk in the form of a graph to understand the changes accurately.

Real-Time Connections and Output: 

Source: SriTuHobby

Once the connections are given, we’ll have to code. 

Once the coding is uploaded to the controller and the connections are all set, the weather monitoring system is ready to run and get into action. I hope you liked this article and hope you get some real-time ideas for your projects.

Link for Codes of the entire program:  Program for IoT based Weather Monitoring System  

Written By: _CB_Ryuu_