Weather Station Advice Needed

I'm happy with the Ambient 2902a Wi-Fi wireless. Not sure your price range......

All stations reset at midnight like official records. Hopefully you are uploading to one of the several free hosting sites so you can get data from any day to explain your wet yard!

As far as winds....I've long ago resigned myself to understanding that my anemometer will never read tree top winds (obviously)......however I think perhaps it's just as useful if not more so to measure at closer to ground level as that is where we all actually live....

I have a AmbientSW all in one wireless. Love it. Yes my anemometer is at about 6.5 feet as it's part of my station. I'd say the accuracy is not affected by placement. It measures the wind at the installation point. Instead of saying the accuracy is compromised I'd say how you use the information needs to be understood.

Treetop winds in my area in the past year probably topped out at about 50 mph....my highest measured reading was 27. It makes sense.

Oh for me my rain gauge rarely needs cleaning.....surprisingly. I guess it depends on the kind of trees we have and distance from out gauges

Do you see any temperature spikes during the summer? That was my biggest issue with the Acurite 5 in 1. The Atlas wasn't as bad but still had some spiking. [/quote]


Hmmmmmm. Not that I have noticed. There are about a dozen PWSs within about 5 miles of me. I seem to be pretty ballpark with them not knowing how each is situated. If I am a little high on a sunny day it might be that my installation is above some large gravel near my deck.

I can't say enough good things about my Davis Vantage Pro2. It was not cheap, though. I believe I paid roughly $1,000-$1,100 for it. As Sky said, placement is EVERYTHING. Unfortunately where I live there are many trees all around my yard. I have my anemometer placed about 23' above ground (because I can't safely lift it to 33' without a high risk of the pole coming crashing down) and the closest trees are roughly 50' away so my windspeeds are usually 5-10mph lower than they should be and in come cases, much lower, depending on the wind direction. 

Rainfall, temperature, humidity, and dewpoint are all spot on, though. It took a bit of adjusting but once I calibrated everything correctly, my readings were very, very accurate. 


I would advise against Accurite because they don't last long. I've gone through five of them in the past with each of them lasting only a year or two at the most. When my last one finally broke, I decided to drop some coin on the Davis and I'm glad I did. 

Do note, however, that if you want your info to be online and recorded, you have to pay an annual fee. I believe I pay a little less than $50 a year. 

Mine is an Ambient 2902a. Roughly $150-160. Love it. Free hosting on Ambient.net and easy setup for others like wunderground (though I am still pisses at them when IBM/The Weather Company bought them I lost years and years of data.