Thinking about getting this mobile weather station...

[Shawn Gossman]

http://www.ambientweather.com/dain62wimowe.html

What do you all think about it? I either want to stick it on top of the cab of my truck or somehow make a mount system in the back of my truck that will be easy to remove.

 

[Niccolò Ubalducci]

Even here in Italy we made some evaluations of this station as a candidate to be used by our teams of chasers, but the station seems very light in its structure, and therefore not suited to the vibrations of a vehicle during chasing, hail and gusts too strong.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Yeah I am worried about that. I think I could rig it better than what the magnet has to offer but how strong is the station itself right? I'd hate for a big gust to come through a see it flying away through the air in my rear-view mirror, that could ruin a chase day right there!

 

[Dave Marshall]

My one big concern with the design is the positioning of the anemometer element. That location is going to give you the most accurate readings, unfortunately, it's also going to ensure that every low hanging branch, drive through 'clearance bar' and low flying bird is going to take aim at that thing. We found that to be a major issue with all of the various stations we tried (and we tried at least 4 different manufacturers and 6 or 7 individual models over the years). Those cups are almost always pretty flimsy. If you could devise some way to cover them when you weren't actively on a storm and/or sitting still, you'd probably do an awful lot to increase its longetivity.

I cannot count how many sets of cups we've burned through over the years, mostly because of birds striking it or the stress of constant spinning at 70mph just fatiguing the plastic. Even on low profile cars, it was still an issue, though its much more so a problem on my pickup truck.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

How about if I rig it into the back of the truck, do you think it could serve as further protection?

 

[Sean Waugh]

I would definitely not rely on the magnet mounts to keep the rig down. As for the instruments, I would second what Dave mentioned about the cups and add that with the location of the wind vane you are going to get a tremendous amount of turbulence associated with the rig itself. It will result in your wind directions being rather noisy. The temperature shield that they are using is also vulnerable as it offers not protection against rain (though not many temperature shields do on a moving vehicle). If you're driving your vehicle through rain, I wouldn't trust the temperature readings at all.

As for mounting the rig in the back of your truck, that would offer more protection but it will also isolate the system from the actual ambient air that you are driving through. Wind speed and direction wouldn't in any way be related to the actual ambient air, and instead would be a measure of the eddies your truck creates (which could be interesting I guess). Bottom line, if you want to actually collect reasonable data in the air mass that you are driving through, don't mount it in the bed of your truck.

Just my opinion.

 

[Chris Strahan]

I have it and mounted it my own way!
vehicle mount

 

[Jason Foster]

I don't like it, wouldn't trust it as much as a home made version...but the price is reasonable, or if you a person that owns very little tools.

I always tell folks to check out Chris's Weather Lab series of stations for a good system and design. The platform designs have always held up well in plains chase situation and hurricanes. The current design (I think it's prototype #4) is really well designed and compact. You can adopt many different manufacturers actual station to Chris's platform designs. My current stations needs revamping (cold weather broke the polycarb platform) so I'm going to be re-reading notes and looking at picture's of Chris's design for ideas.

 

[D. McGee]

Hi Jason,

Do you have a link where I can find more information about Chris' projects?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Yeah I would also like to check it out myself

 

[Jason Foster]

put in Weather Lab IV