Weather Stations reviewed

weather lover27 July 2009

I love this video. I have the wmr100 which I purchased last year. This video conferms why the wmr100 is the best.

John A Thomson08 May 2010

As a weather station user I found a number of problems with this report! The testing methodology is experimentally flawed and can only lead to unreliable results. My own weather station required some set-up steps to calibrate the sensors and took 1 - 2 days for the forecasting feature to become semi-reliable. After a week I had high confidence in its forecasting ability. Here's some observations: 1. Out of the box no weather station can accurately measure relative barometric pressure. If you wish to know the actual barometric pressure you need to compensate for altitude. A cailbration step is required which is usually done by looking a local weather station data from known calibrated sources (e.g. airports), ideally at or near the same altitude and adjusting your weather station to match the interpolated value calculated from the reliable sources. Likewise the temperature sensor has to be calibrated using a good reference thermometer and following the procedure laid down by the manufacturer. It doesn't make sense to evaluate the weather stations based on how accurate they are out of the box at an uncalibrated stage. Follow the manufacturer's initial calibration and set-up steps, then take a series of readings over time and changing sensor measurement values to compare against the known reference source! 2. The majority of modern weather station learn over time and become more accurate. It can take days for the forecasting feature to observe trends and the likely weather outcome. Jon's test hardly gave the weather station enough time to realise they were out the box never mind learn local weather trends to base a forecast upon. The stations should also have been accurately calibrated and set-up when placed at their new location. 3. The timescale of the testing is the biggest problem as it doesn't allow the stations to learn and stablise. It also doesn't provide any kind of evaluation of the longer term accuracy, drift and susceptibility to changes in the environmental conditions. An proper test would last weeks or months, not days. Conclusion: It does appear the testing methodology was flawed and would produce unreliable results from the gadgets. He doesn't indicate if he followed the calibration and set-up recommendations of the manufacturer. All this report does is evaluate which device is best out of the box, nor the easiest to set-up and calibrate, nor the best weather station to own in the longer term. Please revisit weather station at a future date, but devise a proper testing methodology and follow the manufacturer's guidance on setting up the devises to produce accurate and reliable results.