Home weather station

[Trainer]

Can anyone recommend a decent to good home weather station. We live between Clinton and Shirley, Arkansas. Just went through a bad tornado. Had another one about year and half ago. We are becoming the new tornado alley. Want something to give us weather conditons and conditions suitable for tornadoes.
The tornado jumped our place. It traveled the full 10 miles between Clinton and Shirley most of the time on the ground, up the mountains and down through the hollows. Not a pretty sight.

Anyhow, looking for recommendations for a home weather station.

 

[4720 OWNER]

How about a battery/AC powered radio with the national weather service on it?

 

[randy41]

i doubt that there's a home station that can detect a tornado. i think the NWS does it by watching real time dopler radar looking for rotation.

 

[Trainer]

I was thinking air pressure and other factors were used when issuing a tornado warning or alert.

 

[mjarrels]

I have a Schatz made in West Germany... Kind of pricey but one of the best units on the market. Probabley would set you back about $400.00 now days?

mark

 

[Amontilado]

I was thinking air pressure and other factors were used when issuing a tornado warning or alert.

Not quite. Tornado/Severe Thunderstorms warnings are issued using data returned from our(NWS)/co-operating agencies' Dopper radars, looking at the storms in four dimensions (N/S,E/W,Up/Down and time). A weather station wil give, when correctly interpreted, an idea on what is happening on the ground, and if one has observed the weather for a while, an idea that a change may be a foot.

Steve

 

[Jimbrown]

I have an OREGON 968. I like it and it does what most wx stations do. None of them will give tornado indications. A good wx radio would be better for that. Tornados are reported by actual sitings more than anything else.

Here is the type of data you would get from my station. There are probably ten or so simalar station close to you. If you use Wx Underground ( can acess it from my site) to find them you could get forcast from any of them.

Weather Station History : Weather Underground

 

[dbdartman]

No idea how it works, or how much it cost, but have this waiting to be installed. Weather & wind station by WIND & WEATHER.

600+ KB pic attached.

 

[Travelover]

I researched this for a while and I decided that the best weather station for the money is the Davis Weather Wizard. The wind speed and rain gauge are high quality. I got mine on line for about $165. Davis makes quality instruments.



PROVANTAGE: Davis Instruments 7425CS Complete Weather Wizard III includes Rain Collector

 

[gsganzer]

Honeywell makes one that also issues NOAA warnings. I think it's about $300. It's in the Cabela's spring catalog, but I'm sure you can find it on Ebay for much cheaper.

 

[Dmace]

Here's mine, it even has a Tornado detection system. Plus it's as solid as a rock!

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

My home weather station is... are you ready?
>
>
>
The WINDOW!

 

[ray66v]

Can't you get any local weather information, plus Doppler radar on the internet?
Ours here is real time. Its high tech and its FREE.

 

[dbdartman]

Guys, my GF lives just a few miles down the road from Mr Trainer (couple miles west of Shirley, population under 500). She had the TV on just before the tornado went through, watching one of the Little Rock stations. The tornado warning had JUST been updated to a watch when the electric went out. About 5 minutes later, she, her nephew & his GF were cowering in her closet while the wind roared.

Frankly, windows don't really work in that area for weather forecasting because there are just too many trees, then you add the fact that they're right in the Ozark mountains, & your sight-lines get quite restricted.

I don't know about how Trainer's place is laid out, but from my GF's place about the only place you can see the sky for more than a short distance is looking straight south, & even then I doubt one could see the sky any further away than maybe 3 miles. A weather station at her house wouldn't have been of any help except for recording the winds & maybe the barometer drop. She gets her general weather info from The Weather Channel page, local info comes from Little Rock (about 1 hour south).

 

[tomd999]

Hiya,

I spent a good amount of time in OK in the 90's. I bought a NOAA weather alert battery backup receiver from Rat Shack for 50 bucks. It has an alarm on it so when the boys at the NWS push the panic button for the county, it blasts you out of bed. It's really loud.

Unless your going to sit up all night and watch your weather station, your best bet is an alert system that picks up the NWS alert signal.

The boys with the big radar are a lot better at tracking the storms than you are unless you work for them.

My 2 cents,

Tom

 

[ray66v]

I like the NOAA alert system. But, I can't have it in my bedroom because it goes off too often, I would get no sleep being awoke for alerts that are in my area but don't affect me. I would LOVE it if I could just have it tell me there is a twister in my area. Then I would gladly move it next to the bed.

 

[jbrumberg]

I like the NOAA alert system. But, I can't have it in my bedroom because it goes off too often, I would get no sleep being awoke for alerts that are in my area but don't affect me. I would LOVE it if I could just have it tell me there is a twister in my area. Then I would gladly move it next to the bed.

I have a First Alert Model WX-268. It has all the WX stations and is somewhat progammable as to the areas for which it will go on alert mode as well as select alerts. It has around 70 different alerts programmed. I also have an old Davis VantagePRO (wireless) for my immediate local weather environment. I really like both of these units. The Davis prediction logarithm is petty accurate for a "micro-weather area".

As to tornado alerts previous posters are pretty accurate. Those things drop out of the sky pretty quickly . Jay

 

[ray66v]

Thanks Jay I have been waiting to find that. I will get one ordered.

 

[dieselalles]

Make sure you get a weather alert radio with SAME technology. For example, all the counties around me are assigned a Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) number. To set the radio up, I had to decide what codes I want to activate in the radio. And since I live adjacent to another county that wraps North and West of us, I wanted alerts for that county as well as the one where I live. This is because 99% of the storms we get come from the SouthWest, West and the South in that order. I then tune the radio to the National Weather Service station covering my area and added the SAME codes and whenever a watch or warning is activated for those counties I've added, I get the annoying but possibly lifesaving alert. Alerts for other counties don't set off the alarm.

BTW, I have a Davis Advantage Pro2 weather station. The other night when we had those horrific tornadoes here in Middle Tennessee, which we were spared, but our neighbors to the NorthEast weren't, the only thing I saw was the winds go from calm to 65 MPH in just a few seconds, blowing from different directions, a sudden drop in barometric pressure and a drop in temperature. This is all well and good, but what it seems to indicate is that a violent storm that could produce a tornado is upon us, giving us precious seconds to take cover.

A much better scenario IMHO, is to have the National Weather Service, who monitors these storms 24 x 7, alert us of watches and warnings. I then turn on the TV/Radio to get more detailed info, and prepare accordingly. But of course I don't just depend on the NWS radio. I usually know beforehand when bad weather is coming our way (NWS, weather.com, etc) and take action accordingly.

And here are some links on the SAME technology...

NOAA Weather Radio
NOAA Weather Radio SAME Info
NOAA Weather Radio

 

[schmism]

im looking for one also, but want one i can hook up to my Ham radio for APRS.

APRS Weather Stations, APRS Weather Station, Weather Station Software, CWOP, CWOP Network

havnt picked one out yet.