In the United Kingdom, the Met Office operates and maintains around 309 surface stations for record-keeping and for numerical weather prediction (NWP) (Met Office, 2012). Surface observations are an integral part of initializing weather models and verification of forecasts. Hence, Netatmo temperature measurements have potential to be assimilated in NWP in the United Kingdom, but work is required to find a suitable agreed quality control scheme to filter out anomalous observations in the United Kingdom. A warm bias in excess of 1☌ was present in the Netatmo temperature observations, which was lessened by the three quality control schemes tested, but still in excess of 0.5☌. Netatmo temperature observations were compared with Met Office MIDAS hourly weather observations. The response to fluctuations in temperature is lagged, with τ (the time taken for 63% of the change to be measured) calculated as 12.7 min for a near-instantaneous decrease in temperature. In a series of controlled lab experiments, it was found that the Netatmo temperature sensor was accurate to 0.3☌. This study investigates the outdoor air temperature measurements made by Netatmo home weather stations, through validation against a calibrated laboratory chamber and by evaluating quality control schemes that are applied to a UK-wide network of Netatmo stations. One proposed opportunity to increase the number of surface observations available for assimilation into NWP is to crowdsource the data from home weather stations. In particular, surface observations are necessary to reflect conditions experienced on the surface. As NWP resolution improves, more observations are needed, to better capture regional variations in atmospheric conditions. Observations of the real-time state of the atmosphere are required in order to initialize numerical weather prediction (NWP) models.

Netatmo wunderground