Ambient Air Stations (Air Quality Monitor)
What role does precipitation play in ambient air monitoring?
What happens to air pollution and particulates in the air when it rains or snows?
Rain and Snow can affect Particulate matter deposition.
- Precipitation can influence humidity and temperature contributing to the formation of ground level ozone
- Precipitation impacts the chemistry of the atmosphere influencing the formation of secondary pollutants like ozone and aerosols
- Precipitation can lead to acid rain if the air has elevated levels of SO2 or NOx.
- Precipitation contributes to storm water runoff and can pick up pollutants on the ground which end up in the wastewater.
The OWI-430 DSP-WIVIS™ is the most advanced present weather and visibility sensor ever made!
The OWI series is a fully automated instrument which provides accurate visibility, present weather and precipitation measurement and can provide up to 50 NWS/WMO codes in a single sensor.
The OWI series sensors incorporate three different sensing technologies:
- In-beam optical scintillation (precipitation type) discriminates rain, snow, hail, drizzle, sleet, etc
- Off-axis forward scattering (visibility; RVR)
- Acoustic (Hail & ice pellets)
This 3rd generation intelligent sensor uses all digital signal processing (DSP) for no-drift high-accuracy results. OSi’s patented environmentally adaptive algorithms use artificial-intelligence technology derived from over 800 million field hours of real-world data from our sensors installed around the world. The result is the most advanced weather sensor in the world.
The OWI series measures visibility and detects and quantifies rain, snow, drizzle, freezing and mixed precipitation conditions. The -DSH model also identifies whether visibility impairments that are caused by haze/fog vs. dust/smoke. The APG-815 – utilizes our optical scintillation technology to measure instantaneous rain/snow, liquid water equivalent & accumulation, 20 NWS/WMO codes
Our sensors are designed for year-round continuous operation in all climates from Antarctica to tropical rain forests.
OSI’s advanced weather sensors provide critical weather information to airports, highways, military, environmental research and meteorological weather information systems all over the world with over 3000 systems fielded.
Accurate precipitation measurement is also important to being able to calculate the runoff of pollutants into waterways and municipal sewage treatment systems, among others.
Planning and corrective measures can only become cost effective and helpful when the critical parameter – rain rate – is accurately known.