Weather station recommendations

[Ben Kossow]

I'm looking for a little help in possibly making a purchase for my school. We're looking to purchasing a weather station that can stream info to the web. Nothing fancy...basically temp, wind speed/direction, and, maybe most importantly, wind chill as it will help make decisions about indoor vs outdoor recess. This info will be shared out to other district schools to help in their decision making processes. Other data available with the device is just a bonus.

Keeping cost down is important but reliability, accuracy, and ease of use/setup is really critical.

Appreciate your help!

 

[Jeff Duda]

Davis brand weather stations are probably your best bet for holding costs down while keeping data quality reasonably high. The full package (instruments, mounting infrastructure, and software) will probably run you close to $1,000.

http://www.davisnet.com/weather/how-to-choose-a-weather-station/#compare

If it turns out you have more money to spend and/or need more accurate measurements, I would consider a station from Vaisala. They don't have prices listed on their products page, but I'm pretty sure the higher end systems will be several thousand dollars. Top-of-the-line systems will probably run around $10,000.

http://www.vaisala.com/en/products/automaticweatherstations/Pages/default.aspx

A Google search my reveal other options, but these two brands are commonly used for consumer purposes and, as far as I know, are reputable.

 

[Mark Ellinwood]

If it turns out you have more money to spend and/or need more accurate measurements, I would consider a station from Vaisala. They don't have prices listed on their products page, but I'm pretty sure the higher end systems will be several thousand dollars. Top-of-the-line systems will probably run around $10,000.

http://www.vaisala.com/en/products/automaticweatherstations/Pages/default.aspx

A Google search my reveal other options, but these two brands are commonly used for consumer purposes and, as far as I know, are reputable.

WeatherBug http://www.earthnetworks.com/products/weatherstation.aspx

 

[Tom Stolze]

It depends on your budget, I have 4 Davis stations and they are a great balance for the money and quality. My first Davis Vantage Pro was installed and ran for over 11 years. I now have Vantage Pro 2's. I have several friends who went with cheaper alternatives that went with Davis after dealing with issues on the other stations.

 

[Travis Davis]

It depends on your budget, I have 4 Davis stations and they are a great balance for the money and quality. My first Davis Vantage Pro was installed and ran for over 11 years. I now have Vantage Pro 2's. I have several friends who went with cheaper alternatives that went with Davis after dealing with issues on the other stations.

I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 that I bought a week after my parents bought me a cheap weather station. The cheap wx station would drop the wireless half the time or the anemometer wouldn't spin when the wind was blowing.

I have had the Davis for around 8 years now and it is still going strong. The temp pressure and humidity still closely resembles local Mesonet data.

The only problem I have right now is that the plastic electronics enclosure is dry rotting from the sun. I plan on finding a new enclosure and retrofitting everything into it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GPhillips]

If reasonable wind speed accuracy is important, proper siting of the instruments is crucial. There's some guidance here, but lots of other links can be found to proper home weather station siting.

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