<p>Free-space optical communication (FSOC) has now become a viable option for communication with various benefits over its other alternatives. Due to geographical compatibility, this is more feasible and advantageous to execute over short distances of communication, on the order of kilometers. Inter-building connection, multi-campus connectivity, and confidential/secure data exchange at higher data rates are just a few of the application areas. The dynamic swings in atmospheric conditions throughout time are the most challenging issue for FSOC deployment. Atmospheric variations during the year can shorten the duration of FSOC installation and diminish its performance. Furthermore, the urban landscape causes pollution, which decreases channel quality through particulate matter. There hasn’t been much experimental research on this topic thus far. In this paper, we present the in-house developed FSOC system with file transfer protocol and measure its performance over a range. The calculated error in the received file shows the data rate dependence. We have further simulated both theoretically and experimentally the fog, smoke, and wind disturbance in separate chambers on a testbed facility at three different levels of light, moderate, and severe conditions. We have evaluated the fractional error of the received file compared to the original data. We have also introduced various forward error correction codes in the data transmission as a mitigation strategy and found that there is 10 to 20% mitigation achieved, depending on the atmospheric conditions. Current work not only reveals atmospheric effects on FSOC but also suggests a plausible solution to overcome them.</p>