Recommendation for Cheap Weather Station That Is Accurate?

• 

  chumlee on 28/10/2017 - 17:16

  +2

  I prefer to watch Jane Bunn instead. Don't even care for the weather

• 

  Euphemistic on 28/10/2017 - 17:39

  I figure the weather app on my phone is accurate enough for me. I don't know why you need to know the temp to the nearest degree, the temp at the local weather station will give me a pretty good guide on wether it's hot/cold/nice outside. Looking at the trees for wind speed and the clouds for impending rain is also accurate enough. Do you have some other reason for needing extra accuracy?

  As for a cheap weather station giving you a forecast, unless it connects to the BOM website, it isn't going to be of much value.

• 

  mr626 on 28/10/2017 - 18:43

  +3

  I disagree that unless it is connected to the BoM it is of no value.

  In the area where I live, there are no 'official' weather stations nearby. So whilst I can put my postcode into all the usual weather apps and websites and it will tell me the weather at 'my suburb' if you drill down a little and see what location it is getting the data from, it is from far enough away as to not be accurate.

  To the OP, I have owned a couple of 'Fine Offset' weather stations- www.foshk.com They are probably the most common 'cheap' weather stations, and they are rebadged by a bunch of different companies. If you do an ebay search for 'weather station' odds are most of the entry level results are going to be Fine Offset units.

  In my experience, these seem to work fairly well. I wanted something that could work with the wview software www.wviewweather.com to generate a webpage from the weather data. I've owned both the WH1080 and WH1081 and they worked well for a number of years. The plastics on them tend to perish before anything else fails, but for the price-point that isn't entirely surprising.

  If accuracy is really important to you, where you position the weather station is something worth researching. Certain locations in your yard can result in inaccurate readings for temperature, wind etc. For example, I usually mount mine on an old Foxtel dish pole that is attached to the facia of our house- results in the station sitting just above the gutter line. This gave me pretty good readings for most things, but I did find on really hot days that there was a bit of a heatsoak effect from the nearby roof tiles which would cause temperatures to be a few degrees higher than actual.

  Hope that helps.

  • 

    jeeg on 28/10/2017 - 23:11

    Thanks mate. I will check out the WH108X series. Looks like these are selling for like $150 or so on ebay.

• 

  pl3x on 28/10/2017 - 21:05

  +2

  Oregon weather stations seem to be popular

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  mskeggs on 29/10/2017 - 18:37

  Just so you are clear, no amount spent will give you accurate forecasting, and the better stations don't include this dubious feature.
  The modelling to give even the "right most of the time" forecasts from the BoM require super computer power and a team of scientists.
  Watching the weather is a very interesting hobby, and I reckon you should spend some time and money getting some tools to quantify it, but also spend a few mindful moments regularly getting a 'feel' for the weather in your area. You will find being more conscious of the weather will allow you to interpret the forecasts and tell how they apply in your area.
  E.g. Sometimes our weather will say high chance of a thunderstorm, but I can feel it won't eventuate due to the low humidity and lack of temperature etc. and happily hang out the washing. And vice versa.

  • 

    mr626 on 30/10/2017 - 10:18

    This is a good point, and I missed from the OP that a weather forecast is a key feature they want.

    I only use my weather station for recording of historical weather data, and to be able to check the weather conditions at home while I am elsewhere. Forecasting is always going to be a bit of a 'dark art'

    As mentioned, getting a feel for the weather in your area is helpful too- for example you'll get to know that if weather event X is happening at nearby location Y, that probably means weather Z is going to happen at your location.

• 

  Elppa8 on 29/10/2017 - 21:57

  +1

  Fine offset has a model that uploads direct to Weather Underground from the console. I had a a model that had a USB output to a pc and interfaced with the free software Cumulus. Has a good interface and a basic forecast. From there you can upload to Weather Underground that opens up a lot of options for apps and forecasts. After a few years I upgraded to a Davis weather station.

  • 

    jeeg on 29/10/2017 - 22:16

    thanks Elppa8. Do you need to always have the PC running in order to interface to weather underground?

• 

  Elppa8 on 29/10/2017 - 22:36

  Not the model that connects direct to WU via Wi-Fi. For my setup yes. I have an old eeepc net book as a logger that I fitted with a ssd. It also monitors and uploads our solar generation.

  • 

    jeeg on 30/10/2017 - 01:01

    Cheers mate

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  AlienC on 31/10/2017 - 00:10

  I have a $7 AUD cheap temperature and humidity small alarm clock thingy coming in the mail I bought from gearbest or banggood or over of those el cheapo sites could have been shipping square or something actually rather.