Weather Station Recommendations

[polo1665]

Been surfing the Net tonite looking at home weather stations. Seems like there are quite a few to choose from. I don't think I want to get too extravagant, just something to keep an eye on what's going on around us. Would like to have some memory capability, perhaps capability to connect to the computer. I might enjoy tracking some of the variables from year to year. I'm drawing the line at about $250 to $300.

Anybody out there have experience with the different manufacturers. There seem to be quite a few (Lacrosse, Davis, Oregon Scientific, Honeywell, etc). Which one would you recommend and why?

Thanks for your input
Mark

 

[Scooby074]

Heres what i have Davis - Weather - Weather Monitor II . Its a Davis Weather monitor. I highly recommend it. Its around 200$, and made in the USA. You can add a rain gauge and computer interface for data logging. Its not fancy, but its easy to use and has held up quite well in the salt water environment i live in.

It looks like that model is now discontinued. You may be able to find some old stock out there. After seeing the durability of the Davis products i wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of the more expensive current models. If i was buying new id likely get the Davis Vantage Pro2, Davis | WeatherIts more money, but has a more elaborate display, and is available in solar powered wireless which would make hookup and locating the unit in a suitable location ,alot easier. Dont underestimate the benefit of wireless during setup crawling around a hot attic sucks.

Id avoid any of the low buck Chinese clones like some you have listed above. There not accurate and dont last. Been there done that.

 

[elalexander]

I have a Lacrosse TWC model and it has not given me any trouble. Bought it new online for about $130-$140.00. It is over a year old and works fine. The Davis models do reign supreme but for a much larger price tag. For us just to keep tabs on the rain wind speed etc etc our Lacrosse model fits the bill nicely.

 

[zeuspaul]

I go to wunderground and look at several near by personal weather stations. There is one about 500 ft from me and several more within a mile. They report temp, wind speed and rain amounts. I have the wunderground gadget on my monitor which constantly updates the temp from the nearest station. (72 degrees right now

I do have my own Microlite recording thermometer. It is programmed to record once per hour. Once a month or so I hook it to the USB port and download it. I use it to calculate my own chill hours.

Zeuspaul

 

[polo1665]

Scooby074 - I definitely like the Davis weather stations but I'm afraid they are a little pricey for me. Which of the ones that I listed would you consider Chinese clones? I am sure I want to stay away from that scene.

elalexander - I was looking real close at the Lacrosse models and am leaning in that direction. I just wanted a sanity check. Always good to hear from people with practical experience.

zuespaul - I really like the idea of "Wunderground". Unfortunately in my area the closest station listed is four or five miles away. I'd really like to keep track of the rainfall for my garden and around here I could get a 1/2" of rain at my place and nothing a couple miles away. There is some sort of weather station set up at an intersection about 3/4 of a mile away but its not listed on Wunderground.

Thanks for the help so far.
Mark

 

[lhfarm]

I won't repeat what has been good advice. I'll just say I went through 3 inexpensive stations before I broke down and purchased a Davis Pro wireless model. I just wish I had invested those first dollars in the Davis. It is a lot of money, but if you look at it as a long term investment I think the Davis will give you a better return.

 

[Scooby074]

polo1665 honestly id avoid them all. I went thru 2 complete stations, a Lacrosse (may have been a Honeywell) and a "wal mart special" plus several Radio Shack thermometer/ hydrometer units before deciding on the Davis. If you search online you'll see that the Chinese ones are regarded generally as toys by most.

Id have a look and see if you can find a "Davis weather monitor" online it would fall in your price range. There has got to be some old stock floating around.

Ambiant weather has the complete Weather monitor II for $249.Davis Instruments 7440CS Cabled Complete Weather Monitor II Weather Station Thats a really good price. I havent dealt with them personally, but read good reviews when shopping for mine a couple years ago.

 

[Travelover]

I recommend the Davis Weather Wizard III. I've had it about a year now and it has worked perfectly. I got it for about $175 with rain gauge, on the internet. (Do a search, there are lots of retailers selling this at a discount). I was going to buy a cheaper set, but after reading owner's reviews on Amazon, I didn't see any that seemed like they would provide even minimal performance. Davis also makes high quality professional weather instruments, so they know what matters in a design. And get this - Davis sells replacement parts and offers service - what a novel idea!

 

[SCRich]

All good advice so far but let me chime in with my expiriences.

Back in 2003 or 2004 I purchased a Radio Shack wireless station which I belive is the O/S WMR-928 or so, my brain is mush these years and I have forgotten. The unit is not QUITE waterproof as I had found out and had to have the temperature gauge replaced shortly after installation. Upon replacement I took all circuit boards and coated them with several coats of Krylon clear over several days. The water problem was solved, the station lasted 2 hurricanes in 2004. Late in the year some of the sensors fell prey to ants, in South Florida we had a lot of them. Several nested in there and died, their bodies are highly corrosive and ate away through the krylon and then the circuit board traces. I fixed them but their operation was erratic at times , come 2005 we got another 2 hurricanes and the unit failed during the 1st one, I gave up, the durability is just not there.

Fast foward to Christmas 2007 and we had moved to South Carolina. The wife purchased a Davis Vantage ProII for me. Yes it was expensive but boy is the quality and reliability there. I am using it along with a serial logger and an GREAT piece of software called Weather Display that comes from New Zeland. The author is a dairy farmer and amateur radio operator with frequent trips stateside for tornado chasing.

I REALLY suggest if you need to wait a bit longer and save some money upgrading to some of the Davis products. Peet Bro's also have some nice units, a bit less expensive initially but if you add up the accessories it's not much of a savings of the Davis. I sold a few Peet units to a customer that had a few ships and owned an island in the Bahamas and they required quite a bit of TLC.

If you want to check out the local data I have my Davis and Weather Display software on line. Take it easy on me, it's only using a Verizon Wireless modem and my signal is very weak here.

Hurricane Ranch

Another quicker and more reliable way to see how the data looks would be to check out weatherunderground.net , search for Sharon SC. I also upload the data to the weather underground since it's better for me to check that web site while out at work and it does not cost me bandwith. You don't see any fancy graphics but the data is the same.

 

[SLOBuds]

I use the Davis which has worked reliably now for 3 years. With just a little bit of work you can get the data posted onto the internet and look at weather conditions from anywhere you've got an internet connection.

To this day, my wife and I say that this weather station was the best Christmas present we ever gave to each other. Also, where we have it located is in the country where no other station is reporting weather. So most of the locals use it also.

The Davis equipment is reliable. I haven't had a trouble with it, which was surprising because there are plenty of moving parts on it.

Our Weather Station Internet Site

 

[milkman]

Here's one, but the "you get what you pay for crowd" will probably say it's junk.

La Crosse Tech Wireless Weather Center, Lawn & Patio, La Crosse Technology, La Crosse Tech Tech Wireless Weather Center Weather Station Weather Tracking at Sportsman's Guide

 

[SCRich]

It's not a matter of if it's junk or not it a matter of what you intend to do with it.

If you just want to look and see how cold it is, or how much it has rained today or if it's too windy to do a burn at $100 it's a bargain. If it lasts a couple of years you can buy 10 years worth of them for the same price of a Davis Vantage ProII.

If you intend to collect your data over several years to chart trends and make planting decisions or to send your data to the NHC or NWS as part of the Citizens Weather Observer Program I would not buy one. These units are not as accurate and accuracy/reliability is what they are looking in the CWOP program. Also if you are looking to trend over a long period of time and the unit keeps breaking and needing repairs you will be very frustrated due to all of the down time making your charts miss large chunks of time. You can't trend if you miss data often.

I am not being a brand snob..I just started with the less expensive models myself and learned. I enjoy the hobby much more and find it much more usefull now that I can trust my data and spend more time using it than repairing it. When I lived in Florida it was a hobby and a service to the Hurricane Center, now it's a service to me since I have a small farm and use the data when I burn and plant. I have also told some of the local TV stations about it since we are in a populated but ignored region of the viewing area. We do not have any local reporting stations and our weather is a bit different than in the Metro Charlotte area, for instance we have much less rainfall than the city has had 25 miles away. On occasion they do report the temp and rainfall from here for the viewers that do live out here.

 

[cynfj]

I've been working on a decision re: a weather station purchase and was pretty overwhelmed by all the choices. Today I saw this site when I again Googled Weather Stations. All your comments have been extremely helpful---thanks to all of you---now I can go shopping. Your willingness to share your experiences and problems (ie. with the cheaper models) will save me time, money, and probably, aggravation. Thanks again! Great site!

 

[Jimbrown]

I use an Oregon Scientific WMR968. It has been flawless for over a year. All the sensors are wireless and some are at least 200feet from the base unit. It has a serial port for networking it to your computer and there are several very good 'free' software programs that work with it. Acouple of sites that I upload to.
Weather Station History : Weather Underground

Weather Conditions At DW1254

If you need the free software I can give you some URL's.

 

[polo1665]

Once again, thanks for the responses. I guess I have to decide how far I want to delve into this. I am still a bit confused though. From what I gather, if I don't want to spend $900, I won't get anything very accurate. Is that true? The stations I'm looking at are in the $250 range. Can I expect them to be accurate or not?

Mark

 

[Scooby074]

You can find one of the small Davis units, such as the weather wizzard or weather monitor for under $250. They will be more than accurate enough, and be as reliable as the more expensive Davis units like the Vantage pro, because they share alot of the same components.

 

[Jimbrown]

Here is a comparison of my $200 WMR968 against 7 other stations including the Douglas and Ft Huachuca airports. Mine is just as accurate as they are. The red line is the predicted reading for all stations. The good computer programs will allow you to adjust any of your sensors for constant wrong readings. Example if your temperature is constantly high by 2 degrees you can have the program subtract 2 degrees before logging it. Mine is the blue line. Be advised that most of the cheap stations will not interface directly to your computer which severely limits there use. You need to be sure that it has a serial port/com port/USB port that can interface with your computer.
DW1254 (Elfrida, AZ US): Daily Weather Quality Charts

You might want ot go here and look around.
http://www.wxforum.net/

 

[smfcpacfp]

It doesn't look like any of you guys are in heavy snow country, is that correct. Half of our year is winter, I just wonder what issues snow would create for the anemometer, rain gague, etc.

 

[dmccarty]

Mark,

You did not mention what you want to measure. I have been wanting a good weather station for years. Just don't have the money to spend. More want than need. I want to measure wind, wind direction, rain, temp, and humidity and have it logged to the computer. The big problem is the wind speed. For us its hard to find a real good placement for the wind meter since we are in the woods and any cleared area close enough to the house for wireless would likely block the wind at some level.

Either the reviews on the weatherunderground or on the manufactuers website I find specs on the measurements. The cheaper units had some pretty large error ranges especially on the wind meters. Some of the rain gauges had issues as well.

Wind speed and direction are a big issue for me. We have had wind storms take down some very large trees. These were very localized gusts and I sure would like to know the speed that took down the trees.

I had decided that the Davis Advantage Pro was the one for us to get. Not cheap but it was accurate. One can spend alot more money and the Advantage certainly is not cheap but it seemed the best bang for the buck.

You might want to find out the accuracy of the models that you have an interest and see if that helps you decide one way or the other.

Later,
Dan

 

[Scooby074]

smfcpacfp : We are in snow country, well maybe not as much as as some places, but we get our fair share. Much worse than snow is the fact we get a fair bit of freezing rain because we're right off the ocean.

Snow doesn't seem to have any effect on the anemometer however wet snow and freezing rain can stick a bit.

If you want to use a rain gauge in the winter, you have to upgrade to a heated unit, i think davis has those too. Most people just unplug and take them in for the winter, or wrap them up in a bag so that water doesnt get in them and freeze.

So far i havent broken an anemometer cup, but the good thing about davis is all their parts are available over the counter at the store where i bought my machine . Most of the other "wear" parts are available too.