WeatherFlow Tempest Weather Station

[Robert Edmonds]

I bought this some months ago from indiegogo (basically a Kickstarter). It just arrived today. So far easy setup and it's a simple one unit. Until I get it mounted to a more permanent pole, I have it attached to a tripod (it's also provided a 4/20 bolt mount/typical tripod mount). This may be a way for storm chasers to monitor local conditions, while parked in the field. Overall, seems to working well except for some spurious lightning detection. I got it because of the sonic anemometer, and thus no moving parts.

 

[Jeff Duda]

The price looks great for what it can offer. What are the accuracy specs?

Also, can you show a closer picture of the mounting part so I can get a better look at how it can mount? Thanks.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Unfortunately, they haven't provided lots of details about their error bars... I have another station running to compare. I haven't gone full met nerd, so I don't have any scientific grade stuff to compare though. Maybe I can bring it to work though...

This is the mount for the tripod. The other provided is a 1" pole mount.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Currently where I have sited the station.

 

[Jeff Duda]

So it looks like the plate for a common camera tripod fits the bolt fitting there, right?

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Yep, it's your standard bolt holes for a tripod.

Here is where the data is being published.

Personal Weather Station Dashboard | Weather Underground

Weather Underground provides local & long-range weather forecasts, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations worldwide.

www.wunderground.com

Tempest

Tempest Weather System

tempestwx.com

Ignore any data before about 7pm yesterday, I moved it around a few times. I also figured out what was making the lightning strikes give false positives, it was a bug zapper we had running.

The site has a clear fetch for wind to the west, but I may have some issues with solar radiation, I believe a tree will throw a shadow over it. A problem with having trees on your property...

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Little gust front from last night.

 

[B. Dean Berry]

Could be car mounted very easily with a RAM-ARM mount and a camera mounting ball.

 

[rdale]

Unfortunately, they haven't provided lots of details about their error bars... I have another station running to compare.

Robert - what's your update after a few months of use?

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Robert - what's your update after a few months of use?

It's been working great. What I thought were false positives for lightning actually weren't. It's just is very sensitive to any charges developed by very small storms. The rain gauge may be off for short brief storms, but it seemed to nail the amount on a day with a steady rain. Overall my favorite part is the sonic anemometer, so no moving parts.

 

[rdale]

Great - any thoughts on the accuracy of the sensors?

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Great - any thoughts on the accuracy of the sensors?

As far as I can tell, I don't have any calibration laboratory available, it is as good or better than any personal (non scientific grade) weather station. There hasn't been anything way off and noticable. The only exception might be the rain gauge.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I noticed a lot of WeatherFlow branded weather stations were providing observations in the hurricane landfalls along the US coast this season. Seems they have become popular enough to start filling data gaps in the surface network. I think that speaks as much to their quality as anything else. (could also be the price, though, but apparently they're still as good as more expensive units.)

 

[rdale]

Thanks. How does it record winds? Instant? Averaging? That's my biggest need and typically find that's where this price point often fails I was looking at the STORM and it averaged winds over 30 seconds which is a hard no.

 

[GPhillips]

Thanks. How does it record winds? Instant? Averaging? That's my biggest need and typically find that's where this price point often fails I was looking at the STORM and it averaged winds over 30 seconds which is a hard no.

rdale

This is from their FAQ, Technical Questions section

"Good question! Our proprietary sonic anemometer actually samples wind every 1sec, then reports the 3sec average to the hub. The hub makes the 3sec data immediately available to the app, via UDP multicast, and via BLE spec. The hub then calculates a 1min average (+ lull & gust) and publishes that data to our servers in the cloud. This scheme allow us to sense and report detailed nuances in the wind field. We have been evaluating user-configured update intervals — but it’s not available in our software yet. "

I saw someone complaining about some funky winds when it's raining, but don't know if that's a characteristic of the system, or just an observation by one person in his experience.