DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A METEOROLOGICAL SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF UNICAL METEOROLOGICAL STATION)

CHAPTER ONE

1.0INTRODUCTION

Meteorology is the study of the atmosphere. It includes the study of the daytoday variations of weather conditions, the study of electrical, optical and other physical properties of the atmosphere and the study of the average and extreme weather conditions over long period of time meteorology is and the study of the average and extreme weather conditions over long period of time. Meteorology is the most is the most international of scientific stud and activities. Its realm is the atmosphere of the entire globe, with a practice that involves the daily cooperation of every nation on earth. The beginning of meteorology can be traced back to ancient India as the Upanishads contain serious discussion about the processes of cloud formation, rain and the seasonal circles caused by the movement of earth around the sun.

A meteorological station is a facility with instruments and equipments for observing atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurement, Includes temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction and precipitation amounts. The station maintains a national meteorological service, take meteorological observation and give notice of the observations and also extend the weather services of the benefits of commerce and agriculture. The weather bureau operates and network with meteorological station to collect the data required for all its meteorological activities. The bureau prepares and distributes routine weather phenomena and provides warning of intending floods in addition to regular forecast of river stages. It collects analysis and publishes records of temperature, rainfall, wind and other weather elements and develops applications of climatologists for agricultural, industrial and commercial uses. The weather bureau participates in the world meteorological organization WMO to ensure the development of a network, the standardization of observations and procedures, the exchange of meteorological data and the development of meteorology as a science.

The signification of a meteorological stations lies on the degree of efficiency gotten from the information obtained activities which must be carefully coordinated to activities the researcher targeted goal without which the goal will not be achieved thereby causing regrettably damages and financial josses.

Meteorological services in most countries have developed a network of stations, which serves two main functions.

i. To collect data for forecasting weather

ii. To assemble the same data over considerable period of time in order to make climatic recommendation for that area for these purpose, different types of stations have developed at major meteorological station. And particularly at airports, where staffs are available and the need for information and current conditions is continuous, homely records maybe made throughout the day in order that forecasters can build up a picture of weather condition over a region.

Design and implementation of a meteorological system is only a project topic intended to stress the importance of computer in the two domain of weather observation and forecasting in a metrological station with greater emphasis on rainfall, temperature and relative humidity data analysis. The usage of the computer system within a meteorological station and its importance cannot be overemphasized taking into consideration the numerous aspects of weather and climate, the complexity of its activities. How Instead of processing manually, a computer could be introduced with defined programs that can perform repetitive tasks more efficiently and faster too. Due to the similarities between the activities and format of the information obtained each year, the socalled form will be used for data storage retrieval and data processing into information. The resultant output will be used by Geographers or climatologist to analyze, know the approximate level of water surplus or deficit within the area of study and combine weather or climatic recommendation for that particular area or locality.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The university of Calabar UNICAL metrological station came into existence some few years back after the creation of the institution of learning. The meteorological station not only serves students of geography and regional planning department, but the entire student of the university. The public too is not left out of the enormous benefits of the institutions meteorological reports though its operation is based on manual I methods of data collection and processing they do not change the basic character of the word Involved in the manual methods of data collection and processing, the row facts undergoes manual sorting, reading, calculating, summarizing and other operations. Output emerges as useful information’s while the frameworks within which data are processed are the same for all tasks. The routine setup varies from task to task. Some routine will include all the data processing operations. The manual data processing is time consuming with little or no efficiency in operations. If data were initially misplaced, correction will takes up some days to accomplish the task which thereby would run the speed of processing.

1.2STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The design and implementation of meteorological system is very necessary so as to solve the problems and set backs encountered in using the manual system. These problems are as follow:

i. Storing and retrieving data from record. Storing of different data i.e monthly total rainfall, mean monthly temperature and monthly mean relative humidity as against the different discipline.

ii. Difficulty in keeping meteorological records effectively.

iii. Errors of Omission.