Not everyone has a barometer, but the weather forecast is useful for both summer residents and tourists.
The simplest barometer is easy to make with your own hands from very improvised means.
The weather is predicted homemade spruce-fir barometers
Hunters in Siberia have long noticed that the branches of coniferous trees lower before rain or snow and rise before clear weather. This ability is also preserved in dry spruce branches, which makes it possible to make from them the simplest, long-lasting barometers.
Barometer made of fir branch and needle. Cut a branch from a young fir or pine tree. Separate from it a piece 10 cm long with a thin long needle growing on the side. Now take a flat board or plywood measuring 150x100 mm and nail the prepared piece of fir to it so that the needle can move freely.
The barometer is ready. It just needs to be calibrated. Bring the device to a hot stove or stove - the heat will cause the needle to straighten and rise up.
Where it stops, take a risk. Then bring the device to the stream of steam escaping from the spout of the kettle. When exposed to moisture, the needle will drop down. Here mark the second line. Connect the marks with an arc and divide into several equal parts. It remains to make the appropriate inscriptions, as in the figure.
Barometer install it in a place protected from direct sunlight, and it will predict the weather for you.
Barometer made from a spruce branch. To make a barometer from a spruce branch, you need to take a 25-30 cm section of a dry tree trunk along with a 30-35 cm branch (the longer the branch, the more sensitive the barometer will be), peel it from the bark and attach the sawn part of the trunk to a plank. It can be hung on a wall or on a window frame.
The branch should be in such a state that when its free end is lowered down (before bad weather) and raised up (in clear weather), it moves parallel to the screen wall without touching it.
For convenience, near the ring of the “arrow” branch, a plywood or metal scale with 1 cm divisions is attached to a board. After some time, when the branch begins to show its capabilities, the indicators “clear”, “variable”, “rain” can be marked on the scale. , just like on a regular barometer.
Such homemade barometers can predict the weather 12 hours in advance.
Well, who hasn’t heard that the weather is predicted by fairly simple physical instruments - barometers?! They are simple, but rare in our homes. And it’s not easy to buy these days. In addition, everyone has become accustomed to relying on weather reports on radio and television. But we are talking about huge regions: the Central Black Earth region, Moldova, Ukraine, middle Asia... How can you find out about the weather in a specific place, where you are now - at the dacha, in the village, on a hike, at a pioneer camp?
Villagers or experienced tourists can use a variety of signs to predict the weather several hours in advance. How? The forecast lies in the behavior of swallows, crows, and frogs. Even leeches, earthworms... Flowers, trees, and their foliage also act as forecasters...
You can do it even simpler. Since ancient times in Rus', craftsmen used forest trees as tips 
barometers. Christmas tree, for example. You need a branch with a diameter of 2-3 centimeters and a height of 4-5 centimeters with two branches diverging in different directions. Having cleared it of bark, you can consider yourself the owner of a good natural barometer. Why? Here's the explanation. From humidity, the tree swells and grows at least a little in size. The knots of our craft are slightly curved. This means that the wood fibers at the top and bottom have different lengths. By absorbing moisture, the lower layers elongate more than the upper, short layers (see Fig. 1). Why not the instrument arrows?
As you can see, nothing complicated. The whole problem, surprisingly, is your... love for the forest. You cannot take a barometer from a green tree. Look for dry or wilted ones. Cut off the top from it - it is quite suitable for making barometers, which are shown in Figures 2-4.
Fir cones will also be useful for us. The largest ones are best - they have large scales. Remove all the scales from the cone, except two, as shown in Figure 5. All that remains is to glue short straws to the ends of the scales - another device is ready.
Place all barometers on a sheet of plywood. And install the sheet itself vertically somewhere in the shade, under a canopy. Such forest devices will serve you for several years.
Interesting:
Each person needs his own hobby to occupy his free time, or to calm his nerves, brighten up loneliness, in general, to each his own. Knitting lessons will help you learn how to knit and crochet. Having learned to knit, for you it will no longer be just a hobby, but something more.
Description of the presentation by individual slides:
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Do-it-yourself weather predictors The devices were made by students of grades 7-8: Lyubarov K., Gotovtsev K., Tamoyan G. MBOU basic comprehensive school No. 19 Kostroma 2017
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Everyone needs to know the weather: “Take an umbrella, it will rain!”, “Put on a hat!” - how often do we hear these words, but how do we know that it will be raining or sunny? Of course, this is a weather forecast and we learn it from television or the Internet. There is a hydrometeorological center; many people have their own meteorological instruments at home. But how did people learn about the weather before, without satellites and instruments? It turns out that nature itself prompted people to know about the weather. We also decided to make our own instruments that would help us, at least approximately, find out the weather for the coming days. We found quite a lot on the Internet various options such weather “predictors”, we chose the most interesting ones and began to create.
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Barometer made from a spruce branch Operating principle Siberian hunters have long known that the branches of coniferous trees tend to fall before precipitation and are understood on the eve of sunny, clear weather. Even dry spruce branches retain this feature, so they can be used to make natural barometers that will show weather changes 8-12 hours before changes.
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A barometer from a spruce branch How to make We took small (15-20 cm) spruce branches, they need to be cleared of needles and dried, two days is enough. Then the twig should be attached to the cardboard with tape and observed. We dashed the pressure to 760 mmHg. according to the barometer. The position of the branch changed literally on the second day, the branch sank, and soon it began to snow. A couple of days later the weather was clear and sunny, and the branch rose! In order for the spruce barometer to give readings, it must be placed on the balcony or on the street. It is better to make a street barometer from a large branch.
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A barometer from a jar How to make We took an ordinary empty half-liter jar, cut off the tail of a child's ball and pulled it onto the jar, securing it with an elastic band. A stick was glued to this lid with tape to create an arrow. Now all that remains is to make a scale and observe. If the pressure increases, the air presses on the rubber cap, and the arrow rises to the top, clear weather awaits us. If the pressure decreases, the rubber cap swells and the arrow goes down - wait for precipitation. Before the snowfall, the needle dropped to the lowest point. The device is temperature sensitive and should not be kept in the sun or near a battery.
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How to make a barometer from a bottle You need to take a tall bottle, find a suitable cork, make a hole in it and insert a glass tube into it. We filled the bottle with distilled water (it is sold in auto stores and does not deteriorate over time) to about a third. To make it easier to observe, the water was tinted with a drop of ordinary brilliant green. The hole around the tube was covered with plasticine. A scale was glued to the back wall, and pressure markers to the front arrow.
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Bottle barometer How it works When the atmospheric pressure changes, the water level in the tube will change. When the water level in the tube begins to drop, air bubbles will begin to emerge from the tube, this will mean that Atmosphere pressure high and the weather will be clear. If the water level in the tube rises, then the pressure is low and the weather will be rainy.
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A barometer from a flask How to make There are different options for making such a barometer. We took a flask with a high neck, poured 30 ml of cooled boiled water into it and closed it with a stopper. They recommend taking plain water and filling it halfway, others recommend coloring the water, there is even the option of making it from an ordinary burnt-out light bulb, you just need to first disassemble the base and remove the inside. We used a regular chemical flask.
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Barometer from a flask How to read readings You need to be able to “read” such a barometer. We compiled a table, for convenience we came up with a stand, and now you can put it next to the flask and, by checking the table, you can easily determine what the weather will be like. Barometer flask 1 The inner walls of the flask are covered with small drops of condensed water Tomorrow it will be completely cloudy, but without precipitation 2 The walls of the flask are covered with drops average size, and vertical dry stripes formed between them. Partly cloudy. 3 The walls are partially covered with large drops of dew Short-term precipitation 4 From top to bottom and the drops, enlarged, flow down There will be a thunderstorm 5 Large drops only at the surface of the water, and the neck of the flask is dry The rain will pass by, 30-60 km from your place 6 It’s raining outside the window, and the walls of the flask became completely dry, without fog and droplets Tomorrow the weather will be excellent 7 Drops of dew appeared only on the northern side of the flask Expect rain tomorrow in the afternoon You can use such a barometer only if the air temperature is above zero, that is, in the spring, summer and early autumn.
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The drops have become larger, there are stripes between them - partly cloudy Drops on the north side - there will be precipitation tomorrow
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Hair hygrometer The principle of operation is based on the natural change in the length of human hair depending on the humidity in the room. If the hair increases in length, the room is humid; if it decreases, the room is dry.
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Hair hygrometer How to make We took part of the foam tiles that are used when gluing ceilings. The arrow was made from a cocktail straw. You need to mark a hole in it and use a button to make a hole so that the button moves freely. They tied a button next to her long hair, which the girls gave us. The hair was previously degreased in alcohol. The other end of the hair must be tied into the second button, and the button must be inserted into the foam. A small counterweight, a small piece of plasticine, was installed at the end of the arrow. Next, we measured the humidity in the classroom – 47%. It's dry. The arrow was set to the top position. If you place the hygrometer in a damp room (we placed it near an open window), the needle went down. It means "Wet"
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Stormglass Stormglass is a chemical or crystalline barometer consisting of a glass flask or ampoule filled with an alcohol solution in which camphor, ammonia and potassium nitrate are dissolved in certain proportions. This chemical barometer was actively used during his sea voyages by the English hydrographer and meteorologist, Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy, who carefully described the behavior of the barometer; this description is still used today. Therefore, stormglass is also called the "Fitzroy Barometer". Until the end of his life, Fitzroy headed the UK Meteorological Department and led the British Meteorological Service.
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Stormglass Barometer works as follows. The flask is hermetically sealed, but, nevertheless, the birth and disappearance of crystals constantly occurs in it. Depending on upcoming weather changes, crystals form in the liquid various shapes. Stormglass is so sensitive that it can predict sudden weather changes 10 minutes in advance. The principle of operation has never received a complete scientific explanation.
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What is needed to make stormglass This device interested us so much that we decided to make it. We found about a dozen recipes on the internet. The ingredients are the same, but their quantities are different. We tested three recipes in total. The first recipe from the magazine "Chemistry and Life" No. 1, 1982: 2 g ammonium chloride, 2 g potassium nitrate, 9 ml camphor alcohol, 2-2.5 ml distilled water.
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How to make: Dissolve nitrate and ammonium chloride in distilled water, dissolve camphor in alcohol and then slowly mix the two solutions in a water bath. We took distilled water from a car store, but it turned out to dissolve the salts very poorly; it is better to take water for injection from a pharmacy. We tripled all the ingredients. The mixture was poured into a large glass test tube, sealed with a plastic stopper and sealed with Moment glue. This is the cloudy mixture we got at the time of production.
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Our observations Stormglass made using this recipe performed very well. He actually predicts the weather, which surprised us! Little stars - we are waiting for snowfall in 2-3 days Crystals - there will be frost, the higher the crystals, the frostier
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Beautiful summer day. A light, barely perceptible breeze lazily tugs at the sedge. Nimble dragonflies nimbly dart over the mirror-like surface of the lake. The hardworking woodpecker, with respectable persistence, obtains its food in the high crowns of pine trees. And it seems that time has stopped, and there is no force that could disrupt the beauty and radiance of this day. Only from the west is the nakedness of the sky bashfully covered by shaggy clouds. Will it really rain?
Good day, dear lovers of scientific and technical creativity! Don't rush to close the page. You didn’t make the wrong link at all and that’s why you accidentally ended up on a literary site. I was just lucky enough to spend a couple of days in nature, and the breathtaking beauty of the pine shore of the lake could not help but leave a pleasant impression and even, as you can see, awakened some literary notes in it :) But those same clouds that were mentioned just above, then At the same time, they did not allow curiosity to fade away.
In general, it was decided not to leave it to chance, but to predict weather changes using an instrumental method. Of course, one could try to make it, as already described on the pages Your laboratory. Moreover, to my deep regret, finding a glass vessel in the forest in our time is not at all difficult - many people behave extremely disrespectfully toward nature, leaving garbage behind after their vacation. But since I was some distance from civilization, I wanted to use exclusively natural tools.
As we know, . And weather conditions are closely dependent on atmospheric pressure. Conversely, changes in weather conditions can be used to judge changes in atmospheric pressure. If in the case of a liquid barometer we directly measured changes in atmospheric pressure, then in this article we'll talk about a barometer that can record changes in weather conditions that are not yet perceptible to humans. And for this purpose, a pine cone is perfect for us, of which there were a countless number at our site.
Our ancestors have long noticed that cones are very sensitive to changing weather conditions. In good dry and clear weather, the scales of the cone open, and in rainy weather they shrink. Based on these observations, we will make a barometer from the cone.
For this we need:
- pine or fir cone;
- tree resin;
- grass stem.
The cone should be chosen larger - the barometer readings from such a cone will be more accurate.
The grass stalk (it will serve as an arrow) needs to be taken thinner and longer. The longer the stem, the more accurate the measurements will be, again. However, you need to choose a middle ground between the length of the blade of grass and its weight - it should be light. Trim off the excess.
We get this arrow:
In my case, the resin I found was frozen, so it needed to be melted a little. If you manage to find flowable resin, you can skip this step.
We apply the melted resin to one of the scales of the cone...
... and before it has time to harden again, we glue the stem.
That's it, the pine cone barometer is ready!
To make it easier to take readings, such a barometer needs to be secured to something and a scale made for it. I approached the issue of choosing a tripod fundamentally and chose... a pine tree, tying a cone to it with a long stem of grass.
I didn’t make a scale - I just placed the arrow vertically. With this arrangement, any deviations of the arrow will be noticeable. But you can make a scale, say, from a piece of bark and fix it with the same resin.
As a result of several hours of observation of such a barometer, a deviation of the arrow to the left was noticed, i.e. the cone began to close, indicating rain. To make it clear to you how much the needle of the pine cone barometer deviated, I tried to combine two photographs in a graphic editor: immediately after installing the natural barometer and a few hours later. The combination, of course, was not perfect, because... I photographed without a tripod, but, nevertheless, the difference is noticeable.
Well, in conclusion, I would like to note that the forecast of such a self-made barometer was completely justified - it started to rain at night. So a pine cone barometer is a fully functional device and can be used to forecast the weather in camping conditions!
If you want to know in advance about weather changes, you can make a barometer with your own hands. This device shows changes in atmospheric pressure, the fluctuations of which can be used to predict the weather.
So, if the atmospheric pressure drops, then precipitation is possible and the weather will worsen, and vice versa, if the atmospheric pressure rises, then we can talk about the weather improving. Of course, you can trust reports from hydrometeorological centers or look up the weather on weather sites, but it’s better to have similar device and rely on his testimony.
Barometers are produced and sold different types, but you can make a device that responds to fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at home.
These interesting “things” will help you navigate the weather, and their manufacture does not require complex technologies or materials. It turns out that some kind of barometer can even be made from spruce branches.
Spruce barometer
Siberian hunters have long known that the branches of coniferous trees tend to droop before precipitation and fall in anticipation of sunny, clear weather. Even dry spruce branches retain this feature, so they can be used to make natural barometers that will show weather changes 8-12 hours before changes.
To make such a barometer, you need a piece of the trunk of a dry small tree (25-30 cm long) along with a branch 30-35 cm long. The trunk and branch are cleared of bark and attached to a board that is hung on the wall. In this case, the branch should be positioned so that when lowering or raising the free end of the branch, it moves parallel to the wall and does not touch it. Raising a branch signals clear weather, while lowering a branch indicates bad weather.
You can even attach a metal or plywood scale to the board with marks every 1 centimeter. After some time of use, it will be possible to determine the capabilities of the branch and sign the indicators “precipitation”, “variable”, “sunny”
Light bulb barometer
This barometer will require a burnt out incandescent light bulb. At the beginning of the threaded base, a hole with a diameter of 2-3 mm is drilled. You need to drill carefully and with minimal effort to avoid cracking the glass. Fill through the resulting hole clean water up to half the flask. You need to add 2-3 drops of ink to it.
Next, they wait until the inner walls of the flask dry out and hang a barometer light between the window frames of the window, preferably on the north side. If the windows are located on the south side, then the light bulb should be hung at the top of the window. Within a few hours you can take readings.
- If the inner walls are covered with small droplets of condensation, then the weather will be cloudy without precipitation.
- With droplets of medium size, between which dry vertical stripes have formed, partly cloudy weather is expected.
- Large drops near the surface of the water in the light bulb and a dry neck indicate that precipitation will pass by.
- Drops of water on the north side of the bulb indicate rain the next day in the second half.
- If the inside of the light bulb is covered with large drops of condensation, there will be short-term rains. And if the drops become larger and flow down, then most likely there will be a thunderstorm.
- If the walls of the light bulb are completely dry, then the weather will be good
This barometer can be used in spring, summer and autumn at temperatures above zero.
Fir barometer
A fir branch 10-12 cm long is cut. The needles are removed from it, except for one. The branch is attached to the board so that the fir needle can freely fall and rise.
The board with a twig and a needle must be brought to the oven so that the moisture evaporates from it. In this case, the needle rises up and you will need to make a mark “sunny” with the number 1. Then you need to bring the device to the steam, and when the needle goes down, mark the number 10 and write “Rain”. Between these marks marks are marked in ten divisions.
A homemade barometer should be placed in a shaded place, away from direct sunlight. Such a device can be built during a hike and learn in advance about weather changes, focusing on the position of a small fir needle.
Fir cone barometer
You can even make a barometer from a fir cone. This device can predict weather changes several hours in advance. To make such a homemade barometer, you need two smooth wooden planks and a dry pine cone.
Two elements are cut out of the planks: a square base with a side of 70 mm and a side panel measuring 70x150 mm. The ends of the workpieces are processed with a large file and the surfaces of the boards are cleaned with sanding paper. The elements are connected with glue and secured with small nails as shown in the figure. A scale is cut out of cardboard or thick paper with divisions and symbols for sunny and rainy weather. At the side, a large dry fir cone is attached to the base. A dry straw with a paper arrow at the end is glued to one of its scales from below.
The device will work based on the fact that the scales of fir cones are pressed tightly against each other when humid air and vice versa, they open in dry weather. A homemade barometer should be placed on the balcony or outside the window, and with its help you can easily determine whether there will be precipitation or sunny clear weather today.
Barometer from a bottle
For such a homemade device you will need a transparent bottle, a glass tube and a stopper. The bottle is filled one third with distilled water. For better visibility, the water can be tinted, but distilled water is used due to the fact that regular water can deteriorate after a while. A hole is cut in the cork into which a glass tube is inserted. The hole around the tube is covered with plasticine or sealant. The bottle is plugged with a cork and a tube, and the homemade barometer is ready. When atmospheric pressure changes, the water level in the tube will change. When air bubbles begin to emerge from the tube, this will indicate that the atmospheric pressure is high and the weather will be clear. If water pours out of the upper end of the tube, then the pressure is low and the weather will be rainy.
Home hydrometeorological center
A homemade hydrometeorological center can be made using two thermometers. One of them is wrapped with damp cotton wool or cloth and placed in a jar of water. It is necessary to ensure that it is constantly wet. Using the table below, the readings of both thermometers are compared and the weather is determined.
