Wireless Weather Stations - Bunkered in the Basement

Every year, I hope to find a wireless weather station stuffed into my stocking. (Oh no, he’s ranting about the weather again!) Yeah, I know … it’s only the first week of October, but the weekend ahead (not to mention the current state of my basement waterproofing project) has put me into a total weather frenzy. Unfortunately, a wireless weather station is but one of the many elements of the geek puzzle yet to fall into place here at ranchero indebto …

I've been glued to weather.com all day long, watching the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy stream up the East Coast. Now I don't have much faith in precipitation forecasts. But I definitely take heed of the National Weather Service warnings. That having been said, it's the Doppler radar and satellite photos that draw me to the site. It's not just a mindless fascination with the weather that's motivating me today. The boy's team has a soccer tournament this weekend and we're wondering if we need to wake up at 6:00 AM to drive over an hour to find the fields flooded and the tourney postponed.

I don't rely on generic rainfall predictions. Instead, I watch how the storms unfurl via the animated maps. (I tried Storm Predator on Jeff Partridge's suggestion earlier this year and found it to be pretty slick.)

The wireless weather station of my dreams won't just handle the basics of temperatures, humidity, and barometric pressure. That would be too easy. I want all the good stuff: rainfall, rain rate, wind speed, wind direction, and wind chill. Lets not forget the dew point and heat index, as well as the sunrise and sunset times. And I don't want to be bothered plugging the weather station into the wall or changing batteries. The wireless weather station of my dreams is solar powered, baby.

A Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 would cover all the bases. With a Vantage Pro2 and the WeatherLink software I'd be in wireless weather station heaven. Being able to import all of that data into Windows would be way too cool. Hint to anyone that might be reading this at Davis ... I'd be more than keen to write a review ...

As if on cue, the man upstairs has just turned on the the tap. We're due for significant rainfall (hopefully not so much as to worry if my basement waterproofing efforts will be up to the task), but it's unclear how much we'll get, depending on how the storm tracks. Without a proper weather station, I measure rainfall amounts the old low-tech way ... using whatever bucket is handy.

Here's to hoping the worst of the storm passes by ... and that those fields drain really well ...