Weather stations?

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Bobbin

Minister of Fire
Nov 2, 2008
1,096
So. Me.
Does anyone have a weather station at their house? Watching the storm move into the area over the course of the day has me thinking about thermometers, barometers, and anemometers and how much fun it would be to have all three.
 
Got a Davis Vantage Pro 2 here and love it. Had it for several years now.
 
Same here, though our 10 yr old Davis Vantage Pro 2 is starting to show it's age.
 
Or save your money and just type in your local town and state and choose a weather station near you. I've started doing this just to see the differences in micro-climates in our area. We are just south of the Puget Sound convergence zone. 10 miles north can be raining and we can be sunny. It can be quite bizarre. Locally we get half the rainfall of Seattle.

Bobbin, here is Portland, ME. Type in your nearest town to see if there are closer stations.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=portland, me
 
I was going to get that stuff a couple of years ago but piggybacking off the online one a mile and a half from the house at the school board office through Weatherbug was just too easy. And free.
 
The only caveat is that some home stations are in lousy locations that can give anomalous readings. I like to look at a few local stations as a check to verify. Ironically this is not just with home weather stations. They moved the official Seattle station from downtown to SeaTac airport years ago and our record high temps started going up by a degree or two. Now one would expect temps to be higher in city, but some genius decided to put the SeaTac instruments on a hot asphalt pad off the tarmac. Drives the local weather guru and prof at the UW nuts. When they added the third runway and removed a lot of vegetation he noted another change warmer.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/07/did-sea-tacs-third-runway-change-our.html

At the weatherunderground site you can select "Change Station" and it will show you all the nearby stations so that you can get a better overall picture and perhaps pick out one that is close by with similar terrain.
 
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Had a cool Oregon Scientific wireless set up with anemometer & the whole nine yards mounted on a perfect spot on a west-facing gable end peak. Worked great for a few years, then a hail storm blew through and destroyed the plastic anemometer. The sensor's still up there, but I tossed the receiver and replaced with a simpler La Crosse wireless system that uses a little outdoor sensor I don't need a ladder to access and has a better inside display. No wind info, but I don't have any trouble knowing when the wind's blowing.
 
I've learned that when the house starts creaking the wind is blowing at 40+.
 
I found that the one at the school board office stays closest to what is happening at the house of all of the others ones surrounding us. Besides, I am paying $3,400 a year in school taxes every year and have never had a kid in school. Gotta get something out of the deal.
 
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