The weather station thread

[bainbridge]

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've just got my new one up and running and I'd like to hear other people talk about theirs.

For me, it started 2 years ago when I was asked what I wanted for Christmas by the GF. When I asked for a weather station, I got a raised eyebrow and the answer: "Really? No, you don't want weather station do you?".

Needless to say, I didn't get one for Christmas, so shortly afterwards I bought a cheap £20 one from Aldi or Lidl. It did not have a spinning thing on top (which I really wanted), but it had a outdoor sensor for humidity and temperature, which I screwed to the garden fence, and an indoor display to enable me to monitor outdoor conditions from the comfort of indoors.

As time passed, the GF began to take a mild interest in outdoor conditions by looking at my weather station, especially during heatwaves in summer and cold snaps in winter.

Sadly, about 4 months ago water got into the outdoor sensor and it failed

In November last year I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, and when I again asked for a weather station, father Christmas got me one!

It's a Bresser 5 function Weather Centre, much better than the old one, and it has a spinny thing on top!

I bought a TV aerial pole and fixing bracket to try to keep it up out of the way of the many nibbling squirrels we get in the garden. I put it up outside today, here she is fully installed:

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The pole is 6 foot long, but the sensor unit shook about at full extension, so I lowered it by a couple of feet and it's very stable now.

Here's the display:

It monitors the following:

Rainfall:

24 hours from last midnight
Weekly rainfall
Monthly rainfall
Rain in the last hour

Wind:

Average wind speed
Current wind speed
Gust speed measurement, with time.
Wind direction.

Temperature:
Temps for past 24 hours
Max
Min
Real feel temperature

Barometric pressure

Moon phases

I think it has some sort of weather forecast too.

After recent storms it's a shame it didn't get erected earlier. The spinny thing has barely moved. Oh well, we're sure to have more bad weather before the end of winter!

Heres the old one, which is now on a wall in the garage as a clock and thermometer for when I'm out there tinkering.

Who else has a weather station?

 

[bainbridge]

I dont have one but now I kind of want one!
Can it log data and save it to an external device? Can it interface with hime automation kit too I wonder?

/Salsa

The model saves the data into its history and that's it, but I think the more expensive ones allow you to download data from it to compile and also access the sensors more remotely.

On the Bresser website there are some really advanced ones costing £500+

 

[bainbridge]

Had one for about 15 years.

Wireless Weather Station Nexus

Digital wireless weather station Nexus with several outdoor sensors. The weather station NEXUS offers the following features: The outdoor detector transmits the outdoor data wireless via transmitter (max 100mm) to the base station.

www.industrial-needs.com

The only thing I've needed to change is the temp sensor. Everything else is still working fine and I hardly maintain them or change the batteries. When I say hardly I mean years.

Put my wind vane on an Ariel pole also far end of the garden.

That's very reliable, my cheapo supermarket one lasted 18 months and I'd even made a little shelter for it out of half a transparent plastic tub.

This new Bresser one has a 5 year warranty, which I will register for.

 

[bainbridge]

In early 2012 I bought a cheap weather station. It lasted a few months before failing. The broken parts were replaced by the supplier, it failed again a while later and they replaced the parts again. When it failed for the third time, I got fed up with it so I took it down and chucked it into a nearby skip.

Back in 2020 I bought an Ecowitt GW1003 which consists of two parts, the part with the anemometer and the temperature sensors and another part with the rain sensor.

It's perfectly good, it's still running. I don't have a fancy display but I use it to upload to the weather sites and I have a Cumulus site which shows all the gauges. The only problem I have is that when the wind gets really high, it always registers 89mph and I think that's because I've got the wind speed sensor up at about 25ft in the air and the pole moves about a bit.

If I could drill into the fence posts on the other side of the garden, I'd relocate it there but I've already blunted a couple of drills trying to do that. I think it's a task for next year.

My main reason for getting it was for the wind direction and speed - When the wind reaches a certain level, I have it linked to my aerial to automatically turn it so it's facing into the wind.

Here's the gauges as they show now.

That's quite an advanced set of readings you have there.

If my pole starts pogoing in high winds I'll probably need to lower it a bit.

 

[bainbridge]

Weather station update:

After all those recent storms, it's just my luck that last week was a very settled period weather wise in Bristol. Hardly any wind at all and no rain. The spinny thing on top of the station was just sitting there stationary

However, yesterday afternoon, in the 12 hour forecast section of the display unit, some animated raindrops appeared under a cloud symbol!

I checked the BBC website weather forecast, which is usually my go to weather forecast (our postcode is dialled in as "home"), and it said 0% chance of rain for the next 12 hours. The GF checked her iPhone weather forecast (I don't know where this feeds from) and it said no rain forecast. So the weather boffins were saying no rain forecast, but the Bresser was saying rain..

Well, this morning I looked out of the window and we did indeed have rain overnight! Admittedly it must have been a very small amount because the rainfall meter didn't pick up any measurable rainfall, but it's definitely more than just dew. Plus, according to the Bresser, dew point was 1.6c last night and the temperature didn't go below 2.1c.

The barometer display is dropping fast, I need to learn what the numbers mean but it's definitely dropping.

How exciting!

 

[bainbridge]

How does one power such a device?

The outdoor station has x3 AA batteries in it, it's only been up for a week so I've no idea how long they'll last.

The signal on the base unit is reading full strength signal and is about 25 feet away.

 

[bainbridge]

only 3 batteries?

Lot less than I expected but I guess it isn't exactly powering much.

I think it is indeed very low power. The more expensive models have a small solar panel which presumably makes the unit self sufficient.

 

[bainbridge]

@pastymuncher Thanks for taking the time to write this up!

15 years plus for the Technoline sounds great. My unit has a 5 year warranty which I've just emailed to set up.

That 119mph event you described sounds terrifying! Since mine has been set up I've had a max of 5.5mph We've had a spell of high pressure sitting above though, and no doubt this will change.

The plastic extension on my weather station does indeed seem like a weak link, I'll monitor it and if there are any issues I'll look at squaring off the end of the aluminium pole and using that. It certainly won't be as strong as your solid aluminium pole, but better than a bit of plastic.

 

[bainbridge]

Using a solid aluminium pole won't completely make it stronger because where the sensor unit mounts to the pole is plastic with only a small single bolt to fix it to the pole. I am not sure I trust that either as it seems a potential point of failure to me. That's a big unit to be mounted 20 feet up and only held by a single bolt through a plastic collar and I am not sure that's going to hold up in the exposed position it will be mounted. It's not uncommon for us to have sustained 70mph + winds up here so I will see if there is anything I can do to strengthen it. At the moment I am considering a metal sleeve to slip over the plastic mounting point. If it's tight enough it should strengthen the part where the bolt goes through in case the unit twists in a strong wind. I don't know really and will have to think about it some more.

An aluminium band going up and around the whole unit with a boss to accept the pole would be rock solid and withstand the elements for a long time.

 

[bainbridge]

The Bresser display unit has a history button that recalls what was going on an hour earlier with each press of the button, for the past 24 hours.

At 4 AM this morning we had a low temp of -6.8c then it slowly started warming up again. Not exactly arctic, but pretty cold.

The spinny thing on top of the weather station outside literally has not moved for 3 days. The unit has recorded 0mph average wind speed with a maximum gust of 0mph.

However, we have strong winds forecast for Sunday with expected gusts of 47mph.

How exciting!