Weather Stations

Picton Harbours maintains three Gill GMX500 Maximet Weather Stations in the Marlborough Sounds.

Weather stations are located at:

Weather is forwarded to the Weather Underground, stored in a data warehouse, and provided to partner organisations. Partner feeds are available as NMEA via a UDP stream or TCP server, as XML, or JSON. For TCP server access:

Dieffenbach Point on port 45068
Northern Entrance on port 45051
Tory Entrance on port 45050
Waikawa Marina on port 45054

Picton Harbours also forwards data from three Vaisala WXT 530 sensors maintained by Port Marlborough Limited.

Stations are located at:

Ferry Terminal Building (-41.285371°, 174.005331°)
Shakespeare Bay (-41.275865°, 173.999985°)
Waitohe Wharf (-41.282436°, 174.006476°)

Partner feeds are available as NMEA via TCP server:

Ferry Terminal 12027
Shakespeare Bay 12026
Waitoe Wharf 12028

NMEA Format

Several sentence types are produced. Each is followed by a CR/LF.

A line containing a “T” provides the average wind speed and direction
A line containing a “M” provides the minimum wind speed and direction over a sample period
A line containing an “X” provides the maximum wind speed and direction over a sample period
A line containing a “G” provides the IMO three-second gust speed and direction
A line containing RH, TEMP, and PRESS contains relative humidity in percent, the temperature in degrees celsius, and the barometric pressure in pascals
A line containing RH, TEMP, PRESS, and DP contains relative humidity in percent, the temperature in degrees celsius, the barometric pressure in pascals, and the dew point

NMEA format sentence example:

$WIMWV,332.0,T,05.33,N,A*22
$WIMWV,322.0,G,09.22,N,A*3C
$WIXDR,H,092,P,RH,C,014.1,C,TEMP,P,1.025,B,PRESS,C,009.9,C,DP*08

JSON Format

A JSON packet is produced once a minute in the following format. As per the NMEA format:

wind directions are in degrees
wind speed is in knots
wind gust is the IMO three-second maximum gust
relative humidity in percent
temperature is in degrees celsius
barometric pressure is in pascals
relative humidity is in percent

JSON format example:

{
  "sensor_id": "pcn.westhead.gmx500.1",
  "timestamp": "2021-12-02T09:43:51Z",
  "measurement_id": "0f726c8da32d5720fd6171aedf1c4b46",
  "avg_temp": 18.1,
  "avg_pressure": 1017.9,
  "humidity": 115.0,
  "dewpoint": 13.4,
  "wind_avg": 1.21, 
  "wind_dir": 329.0,
  "wind_gust": 1.75,
  "wind_gust_dir": 319.0
  }