Tips For Mounting A Personal Weather Station

Where To Start-Best Tips for Mounting a Personal Weather Station for You

So obviously you need to take a good look at your newly purchased personal weather station. It outside sensor or sensor suite will determine, how you will need to consider hanging it up for using it.

Please Remember where you install it, will be in direct response to the kind of results it will give to you.

If you mount it poorly, you know a bad location your readings will be tainted. The temperature may be elevated if it is in direct sunlight a lot, and if it is sheltered your precipitation amount will be short of what is really happening.

So location does matter in the results you will get.

So get into your manual and instructions you received and find out the size of a post you will need to attach your sensor suite to, or if its a small sensor, how you are able to attach it to your picked location.

Weather Station Mounting Preparation

The next thing to do is, if you don’t own the property where you are living, you might need to consult the owner or management agency to obtain permission before mounting a personal weather station.

But if you own the property and the house, you will need to scope out your surroundings to find the spot for your mounting exercise.

Out in the open for best precipitation collection, but not too sunny, too much, the sun will have a tendency to burn your thermometer into giving you an inaccurate reading much of the time.

The wind, you should not have it sheltered, where it will not be affected by the wind, but you also will need it to be located where you get a good common flow of air current.

So in consideration of all of these situations, you will pick out your best location.

You may also read our best interpretations of all of the things you need to think of by reading our article, What’s Involved in Weather Station Mounting, a comprehensive study of what you are going to be doing in the mounting process.

Location Is Everything For Your Mounting

Just like real estate, location is everything when it comes to the installation of your PWS. Each piece of equipment needs to be placed in an ideal area, or at least not in a bad one.

Failing to pay attention to the specific elements each sensor requires will result in poor measurements.

Whether you want to join a community that compiles data from a personal weather station or are mounting the unit just for yourself, accuracy is essential or your money has been wasted.

To begin with, the placement of your station must be in line with all of the sensors that you are going to use. If obstructed by buildings, greenery, or other items, your readings might be inaccurate.

When mounting a personal weather station you must choose brackets, screws, and related mounting supplies that are designed for the manufacturer and model you own.

You have various potential placement choices, including fence posts and flag poles. The roof or middle of an open field might work as well.

No matter where you choose, it should be placed at least five feet above the surface. Before you make a final determination, make sure that you have an appropriate location chosen for all of your sensors that will allow communication from this location. Otherwise, you might have to move it later on.

You can choose a wireless or cable model for your weather station. If you opt for the cable model you will need to determine how you will connect everything while protecting vulnerable cables from rodents and other potential hazards.

An electrical conduit can help. Additional sensors and location choices are a couple of the benefits associated with a wireless model.

Wind Sensors Are Important Too

In order to ensure accurate wind direction, you will need to find true north, rather than magnetic north. Similarly, you will need to calibrate the barometric pressure in your system.

A National Weather Station or visiting Weather Underground can help you with this. Failure to do these two things will distort your data collection efforts.

Rain Gauge Thoughts

Ambient Weather SRS100LX Temperature and Humidity Solar Radiation ShieldThe rain gauge needs to have plenty of open space around it for accurate readings. First of all, you need to keep it at least five feet away from one-story buildings. Additionally, adjust the distance if there are larger buildings on or around your property.

Make sure that the object never obstructs rainfall around the gauge in any way, no matter the direction or strength of the winds.

As for the humidity sensor, keep it fifty feet or more away from bodies of water and trees. Your anemometer should be thirty-three feet above ground level and at least seven above surrounding buildings and trees to ensure accurate wind readings.

Choose the placement for your thermometer to keep it out of direct sunlight and with plenty of ventilation. A radiation shield can increase your placement options by protecting the thermometer even in direct sun; a ventilating fan option makes it even better.

It should be at least five feet above the surface and fifty feet from any paved areas.

The most important aspect of successful personal weather station installation is choosing the right location for your sensors. These tips should help you when putting together the PWS for your own property.

Don’t passively accept inaccurate weather reports from your local television station. Instead, take charge and install your own system!

Your Adventure Begins With A PWS (Personal Weather Station)

So remember all of this begins with your love for weather. Whether it be the interest you have in watching the weather closer than most people, or if you are keenly interested in historical weather fact gathering, you start with having your own PWS (Personal Weather Station).

Keeping that in mind, here is a small glimpse into what got me started. It all started for me back in the 1950s.

Here’s how I tell it, “for a while people relied on radio and television to find out about the weather rather than taking their own readings. When I grew up on a dairy farm, my dad always had a barometer, and a rain gauge.

He kept track of the barometric pressure daily, so he would have a heads up on any weather changes, and then the rain gauge helping in knowing how much rain we had. This was so he could tell if the fields were too muddy to drive into, to do work.

Other heads up from this could be if the bales of hay needed to be turned so they could dry out, before mowing them.”

Return To Relying on Personal Weather Data

La Crosse Technology 308-1412S Color LCD Wireless Weather Station with USB Charging Port

However, an increasing number of people are returning to some of the old ways rather than rely on meteorological reports, which are often inaccurate. By mounting a personal weather station (PWS) these folks can monitor it for themselves.

You can join the thousands of people doing so, even sharing the data online at a site that aggregates the data for anyone wanting to see what the real weather is like!

Here is one of my current weather stations that I own and use. It is the La Crosse Technology 308-1412S Color LCD Wireless Weather Station, and It has been a consistent day in, and day out companion, of mine.

It is reliable and has been error free for over a year and as half. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good starting weather station. You can read my complete thorough review by going here to La Crosse Technology 308-1412S Color LCD Wireless Weather Station Review