AMES AVI - Aviation Automatic Weather Observation System

The main idea is the same as with ordinary meteorological systems:
an automated meteorological station collects data about weaher phenomena close to the ground and high in the air from wide range of sensors and instruments. This data are saved in a database and presented in various displays. But airport meteorological system is special for many reasons:

• it uses a lot more sensors than ordinary meteorological system

• sensors are necessary to be of the highest accuracy and quality

• hardware, software and database need to be redundant

• capturing of the data and reporting interval is more frequent

• a lot of calculated data in airport meteorological systems is authentic

• special observations are reported if weather conditions change rapidly or cross thresholds

• there are far more various displays of data

• it has an option for adding comments manually

• it automatically generates and sends reports and has an option to do it manually

• it show tendecy for several parameters and makes forecasting easier

Basic meteorological parameters in an airport meteorological system are:

• wind speed and direction

• visibility

• temperature

• dew point

• icing

• cloud coverage and ceiling

• air pressure

• precipitation detection and intensity

• snow cower thickness