Weather Stations

[John B.]

I'm looking to buy a weather station.
Do any of you have advice on which brand is better?
I always like the feedback from everyone on here.

John B.

 

[john *.?-!.* cub owner]

I have been using an AcuRite station for several years and been happy with it.
https://www.acurite.com/

 

[jeffcat]

There are all kinds of neat ones out there. You can even cruise the isles of wally world. They have like eight or ten types of them. The one in the picture is a Weather Channel unit that I picked up at the flea market. Guy had maybe 20 of them brand new in a box. Time, indoor temp, outdoors temp and humidity. Only cost $5.oo and has worked great for five years. Just a tip, change the batterys in the fall. Also follow the directions cause most of the time you need to change the transmitter first. Read the book!

 

[jeffcat]

Opps here it is.

 

[psimmer]

I am now retired, but when I was working for the State of Michigan in wildfire, we used Davis weather stations at our Field Offices. Guessing they still are. They worked well for us then.

 

[Pitch]

Depends on your level of interest. I have a Davis Instrument wireless Vantage pro2. Runs close to a grand all in. Excellent station the Cadillac.
Mine was taken down because Amish folks think a single hot wire will hold Holstein steers.

Much more economical, about 240 is the acurite 5 in 1, that I have now since Christmas. Seems to be a good unit. Wind Rain Humidity in/out temp in/out barometric pressure, dew point, wind chill, wind direction.

Set up is simple,software works well. I can download and save historical data. Data is downloaded from the console to my computer,then uploaded to the Acurite site and to weather underground

 

[Dean]

I have 3 different wireless indoor/outdoor thermometers/humidity sensors.

I've found all three to accurately measure temperature but the humidity sensing is nearly worthless.

FWIW: All three eat batteries.

Dean

 

[MartyinVa]

Got this one for Christmas. Satisfied so far.
Weather

 

[sotxbill]

again, lots of em out there. I have tired all of them. the best so far is the davis vantage pro 2... Its run for 3 years now, and interfaces well into my computer, and reports to the NWB.. so that I am now an accredited wx station for my community. Has add-ons to measure solar density and ground moisture. Can to multiple station monitoring, multiple sharing of monitors, and rated and approved for its accuracy and longevity. I shopped on the net for several months and finally got one for less than $400. The outside unit is still on its original battery as the solar charger built it, keeps it charged up. Inside unit runs on elect and has battery backup also. do have to located it away from buildings and trees to get the rain and wind measurements correct. I use wuhu software on the comp to gather data and report in the the various wx services. recently they combined these services databases so that you only need to report to one.

 

[Texasmark1]

Check with "The Weather Underground". They post on Intellicast when you pull up the 10 day forecast; top of the page. You get your locals if you have your zip loaded in the Intellicast you pull up. You can scroll through them and get the nearest one, or the one that's directly in line with a weather front, like scattered showers to see how much you got without a rain gauge. Neat as I have one about 2 miles from the house. Get a full blown weather report and stored history whereby you can go back in time and see what was going on. All free.

 

[Bob in Australia]

We have a couple of automatic weather stations based on Davis Vantage Pro 2 for the sensors. They communicate via a solar powered stand alone computer to the local cell phone system. That sends the weather observations every 15 minutes onto a publicly available web site.

We find it really useful as there is no one on the farms most of the time, and only very scattered weather reporting stations in the region. The weather stations are particularly useful when we are planning to spray insecticides or herbicides (farms are now all no till systems). We do not have to waste travelling time to distant farms when spraying is not possible.

We are gradually adding more sensors to the weather stations, planning soil moisture readings next.

 

[Ozlander]

I'll second the Davis Weather Vue.
Works good, lasts a long time, easy to set up.

 

[Hoenes]

I have a weather station, but for additional weather get a "storm glass" (perrocaliente)? Kids gave me one for Christmas. Very entertaining

 

[BobReeves]

3 years ago I bought an Ambient Weather WS-1400-IP and hooked up with Weather Underground. Worked great the first year and most of it still works OK. The rain gauge quit after the first year and I haven't been able to get it working again.

Spent my life in electronics so have a pretty good idea of how things work. Pulled it down when it quit and jumped through all the hoops cleaning and checking but still no go.

Will replace it one of these days but it won't be with another Ambient Weather anything.

 

[barnyardorange]

I bought an ambient weather wireless 2095 (about $120) 2 years ago. Other than it not liking lithium batteries. And it doesn't like to go down below 0 degrees here in New York, I have been pleased with it. After reading all the different reviews on weather stations, I concluded that I could buy 3-4 of these for the price of a decent davis (brand). If davis had better reviews and for the cost, would last 2x or more of what mine will, I would go that route.

 

[dkeav]

The weather underground has good information on this subject.

https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/buyingguide.asp