New Station in the Slush.
Here are some pics of the refurbished and newly (mostly) wireless weather station (at least between the main sensors and the console in the house).
Its over there, on the post over the shed.
Closer up… It’s about 6ft higher than the shed roof which should be ok to avoid excessive heating in summer.
Good thing with having it here.. It’s easy to maintain! Check out the slush inside the rain catcher just waiting to melt all at once! (Or freeze into a solid block of ice). Since the shed has power there is also the possibility of getting a heater so the rain gauge is kept above freezing and any the snowfall could be measured accurately.
And finally the anemometer. It’s going to go way up there on the roof where the rest of the sensors used to be.
The only problem is the anemometer itself has a wire, so I will have to string a pretty long wire from way up there all the way to the shed. For now I might just go down the left side of the house, bury it shallow in the gap between the house and fence and then bring it along the fence to the shed. Eventually I will bury a more direct cable through the yard or even better get a wireless transmitter ($200) for the anemometer. Donations welcome. 😉
Still have a snow warning on. But everything has turned to rain in town now. Other higher elevations might be different stay safe, and dry, out there!
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Nice set up Chris. Regarding your comment about excessive heating in the summer, I believe you may still encounter some of that effect as the shed walls and/or roof get warmed by the sun and the plume of warm air rises into the thermometer. A simple fix would be to stick the unit a little farther out, maybe a meter or so. (ie replace that piece that looks like its about 1/2inch x 6 inch and about 8 inches long with something 1 metre long. (Like my mix of units?) At the very least, don’t cut your anemometer wire too short in case you want to make this change later. But I think it would be a good idea to make the change.
Thanks paqqj. Ya good suggestion I actually realized last night AFTER I had bolted it in, I had meant to bolt it in so the station solar cell was facing south, not west as it is now. I have a few of these boards around. I wonder if I could find a set of tracks/rails that could be attaches to each board offset so that I could effectively roll the station “out” beyond the shed and back ‘in’ so it is still easy to get at and maintain.
My shed roof has actually developed a minor leak this winter so when the rainy season ends maybe I will look at replacing the shingles with metal or something else that could support a green roof and would cut down on the heating as well.
I forgot about the maintenance part. Rather than a roller mechanism, maybe you could have the arm attached to a hinge attached to the post and set in position with a locking pin? Swing it out to be in free air, locked in position. Unlock, swing it back across the roof for maintenance.
Oooo! I like that idea!
Decent spot. You should get a more accurate rainfall measurement not being so high up
Ya that was my main concern I figure the temperature reading definitely should not be worse than when it was on the roof. But the rain reading should be much more representative when it’s stormy.