Swiss Upgrade Met Station Network

The sensors record a wide variety of meteorological measurements, including air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall and radiation parameters. Dr. Barbara Huguenin-Landl, deputy project leader at SwissMetNet: “The sensors measure and broadcast their data, consisting of several thousands of parameters, every ten minutes to the central MeteoSwiss database. The data is among others used by MeteoSwiss to serve as an input to a high-precision numerical weather prediction system, COSMO, which generates regional and local forecast products for the complex Swiss topography. »

The ProMark 500, smart GNSS receiver, is being used to determine the exact x, y and z coordinates of each sensor in the network to update and improve the geospatial information in the MeteoSwiss central database. To ensure the required centimetre accuracy, the ProMark 500 connects to the Swipos-GIS/GEO RTK network via GSM to receive RTK corrections.

MeteoSwiss purchased the ProMark 500 from the Toptec Lutz Company, Ashtech distributor in Switzerland, headquartered in Zurich. In addition to its accuracy and ease of use, the Ashtech ProMark 500 was chosen by MeteoSwiss because of the software support, good user-instructions and local post-sale support available free of charge from Toptec Lutz.