Anyone into weather, have a personal Weather Station?

[masraum]

I'm an engineer at heart, so I like mechanical quantifiable things. Temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc.... All of that stuff interests me. I guess I just like to measure my environment. I've been looking at some personal weather stations (which can be reasonably priced to very expensive).

I think I'm going to start slowly and cheaply with more of a DIY route. I've discovered stuff called "1-Wire" which is a communications protocol and the corresponding hardware developed by Dallas Semiconductor. The hardware is a bunch of sensors that you can connect to a PC which then with the help of free or $ software. The most basic setup, would be a serial or USB adapter ($30) and a temperature chip ($5) that's wired to the adapter. That will give you the temp where ever the chip is. From there you can add humidity, solar radiation, barometric pressure, etc...(the temp is the cheapest). You can put multiple chips (for instance inside and outside temp).

It seems like it would be interesting to tinker with and relatively cheap. There's actually a $100 weather station made with the stuff that you can buy.
http://www.aag.com.mx/aagusa/index1.html

Or you can buy parts
http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22

So, is anyone into the weather, and what sort of weather station do you have?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I just have a cheapo one from the Weather Channel. Does indoor/outdoor temp, max and min holds for each in the last 24 hours, relative humidity and barometric pressure.

Enough to look at "at a glance" and tell whether to wear shorts or jeans.

[89911]

I think most of the technology has taken a backseat now that you have wifi homes and laptops. If you can live with the actual measuring point being a few miles from your house, you can get more weather information at any time from anywhere in your house. Not that I am telling you anything you didn't know.

[RWebb]

how much accuracy do you want?

the humidity sensors are the real wayward wastelings when trying to measure the variables you need to find out how hot or cold it is...

[on2wheels52]

No, but my rain guage measures to the 1/100". Just have to remember to dump it after every storm.
Jim

[charleskieffner]

my girlfriend got me a fairly nice one for my b-day a couple of years ago. has a little man dressed accordingly for the weather. hotter than hell hes got sunglasses on and shorts and when its cold he looks like the michelin man bundled up.

has all the crap for indoor and outdoor measurements. now since i werk at an aeropuerto, weather is kind of important to all of us. the aeropuerto has all the NOAA gizmos and widgets and is the actual NOAA meteorological weather site when you punch in the zipcode. at home, i also have a rain gauge and after living here a gazzilllion years in the same rattlesnake infested environment, the rule of thumb is:

2.5" of rain = washes start running

4.5" of rain and about the only thing you can do is grab a rainsuit and hop on the quad and go watch some ser-i-ass FLASH FLOODING!

now btwn my house and the aeropuerto is about 8 miles driving. to the NE of the aeropuerto is a east west mtn range. here the storms from the west/southwest stall and dump some serious H2O. so there is always a difference btwn my house and the aeropuerto in rainfall. since aeropuerto is upgradient from my house gravity takes over and all that water at the aeropuerto sooner or later comes flowing down hill towards us.

i have roughly 9-10 washes to cross in the event of a real nasty monsoon storm. so it behooves me big time to keep an eye out on the weather and rainfall. the worst storms we ever get are wrap arounds out of the NE from storms up on the mongollon rim that come down the rim at full speed and then DUMP ON US! these have had winds of 115MPH recorded at the aeropuerto i work at and sw of me at deer valley aeropuerto. these aint a joke and if yer plane aint hangered or REALLY TIED DOWN, let alone pool furniture and other crap around your house and property, you can have some really expensive giggles watching the winds thrash the living snot out of everything.

at 115 MPH i can promise you that if you dont have a damn good roof(in my case a 2-story lightning rod), your gonna be calling your homeowners insurance guy real quick! in my case during this 115MPH BOOMER........my H2O solar panal went flying about a 100yds SW of me after being ripped from my roof! OUCH!

summer monsoons here are not a JOKE! lots of people get killed by debris/lightning/floods etc. i have seen alot of houses wasted by flash flooding when the water blows over the banks, because they built in a flood plain. yeah i know, who the hell would do that??? WTF?

on the other side of the coin in the winter when an alaskan cold front comes down from the NW you can expect a hell of a lot of snow and below zero temps. its a dry snow vs a pacific cold front coming in that is a wet/sleet/snow combo.

yep it has snowed numerous times right here at 2250 elevation at my house!

plus it really helps to watch the weather running michelin pilot sport cups DOT R's as they are worthless in a heavy rain.