WS stuff
Just for the record. To put up a weather station with pix one approach is ....
4 webcams. You can buy fully weatherproof ones (on aliexpress) for about $US45. USB surveillance cameras. 720P = 1280x720 = 1 MP works fine for this application. All you actually want is a handle on what the sky looks like.
It is not hard to have history - weewx can do it or one can upload the stuff to Weather Underground
Have a look at nzdv.avmet.nz. The cameras get a bit grumpy about pointing directly into the sun.
say $250 for cams
I can understand a bit of scepticism re picture quality - the nzdv pix are about 90k for the four. With 20-minute updates that's 300k/hour - 15 hours makes it 5MB/day = 150 MB/month.
Raspberry Pi computer with a powered USB hub.
$75
Telstra USB modem stick.
$50
Weather station - anything from a Fine Offset (Jaycar) model at about $150 to a Davis that might cost $1000+. Given that wind tends to wander around from minute to minute you are not looking for a high precision direction or speed.
There is (free) Pi software to read these and other weather stations. I use weewx.
I cut the output way down from the weewx standard stuff - I figured if I am flying in or out, the main thing I want to know is what things are doing now and what does the sky look like. High for the month, rain yesterday etc are not really of interest in this application.
Infrastructure stuff - I use a 12V wall wart because there is power available. One could do it with solar. The Pi is a bit of an energy hog by solar standards, although the price of solar cells has fallen so much that this is probably not a problem.
You need is a pole to mount it all on and a box (up the pole) to hold the Pi, cameras, WS and modem. Could be $100-200 I guess.
Cellular data charges are diddly. Telstra have a 12-month data pass of 25GB for $150. Unfortunately that is their only 12-month plan - they used to have $50/5GB/12 months but that went away. Still not a lot though. The station uses about 200MB/month ... = 2.5GB/year
There would be room to raise the frequency or pic quality in these charges.
One can log into the system remotely for software maintenance and changes and stuff ....
So the bill of materials is change out of $1000 with a FO weather station and however much more for a flasher one.