The research and development of such systems is more advanced in the road visibility domain [6; 7]. A similar, camera-based approach is also aimed at getting over the weaknesses of cloud observations. Its basic idea is to take a photo of the full hemisphere [8], and carry out an expert analysis of each picture to determine the cloud coverage. Furthermore, the base height of the cloud cover can also be estimated, on the basis of (i) ceilometer data, (ii) camera images of visibility (e.g., cloud layers relative to the nearby terrain subjects such as mountain peaks), and (iii) photos of the full hemisphere. Alternatively, a more straightforward way to estimate the base height of the cloud cover is to take photos of the hemisphere by an infrared camera, and calibrate the observed cloud temperatures by means of the information on the vertical air temperature profile. Figure 2: An example to illustrate the drawbacks of point measurements of visibility. Here, the visibility meter (indicated by the blue arrow) gets hidden in a fog patch and reports decreased visibility, but the overall prevailing visibility is higher. The camera-based approach to observation of both meteorological variables is integrated in the proposed system, which will be presented later in the paper. It attempts to overcome the drawbacks of the aforementioned sensors by covering the entire surrounding environment. An essential part of the proposed system is a database of observations, which allows for retrospective analysis of weather events and their verification any time. The most important feature of the system is its remote character, i.e., the meteorological observations and the subsequent analysis of the variables may be carried out anywhere, so the observer does not have to be physically present at the target destination. The basics of the proposed system were laid down in the framework of a SESAR program. The SESAR project Pj.05 was dedicated to Remote Towers, i.e., to developing air traffic services by a remote Air Traffic Controller. Following this, the project Pj.05-05 Advanced Automated MET System' launched our experiments in an accompanying service, termed as Remote (meteorological) Observer. The aim of the paper is to describe new possibilities of observing the prevailing visibility and cloud coverage/height using a camera-aided observation system, which does not necessarily replace, but effectively and synergistically complements standard observations. Note that the proposed solution is not a fully automated, computer-vision-based one. The developed system still relies on the perception, knowledge, and experiences of the human observers, though the assistance of advanced technological utilities. The paper focuses on validation experiments to confirm our preliminary hypotheses, which expect that (1) the remote observer approach would show better performance than the standard AWOS, and, at the same time, (2) the performance of the remote observer approach would be comparable to local observations, to estimate cloud base height, cloud coverage, and prevailing visibility. The paper is structured as follows: In the next section, the general architecture of the camera-based system for the remote observation of visibility and cloud coverage is introduced, including the collection of the camera records from the target area, their processing, labeling, backup, and their visualization within the human-machine interface of the proposed system. The third section presents the results of the validation experiment that predominantly focused on the comparison of the novel, remote approach to observations with the standard ones, obtained both by means of automated weather observation system and by the local professional observers. First, the properties of the clouds are examined (the cloud base height and the cloud coverage), which are illustrated by several characteristic case studies. A similar approach is adopted in the case of the prevailing visibility.