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Weather Station 101

How to set up your own weather station.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Weather stations are a great way to keep tabs on the weather in your own backyard, if you want your own I recommend The Ambient Weather 2902, it's $160 and has everything you want.

It has a rain gauge, thermometer, and a anemometer.

If you want a little more precision in your weather data, Davis weather stations are also an option, but these can cost close to $500.

So when you get one, and get it unboxed, now it's time to set it up outside.

Ideally you would want a large open area like this to set up your own weather station, but a lot of us don't have yards this big, so let me show you how to do a site survey.

First of all, you want the station at minimum 5 feet above the surface it sits on. Grass is preferred because blacktop on your rooftop may give off artificial heat.

When placing the station, you want it in direct sunlight, the ribbed shield around the thermometer keeps it in the shade and accurate. Also, don't place it close to a building because you will get bad wind and rain data.

So as a general rule of thumb, we want to install this sensor array four times the distance of the height of the tallest object. We have this building and this large tree behind me so with that in mind we need to install this station about 60 feet away from these objects.

Compromises can be made as it may be hard to find the perfect spot, but remember if you do mount it on your rooftop, consider this, mounting it high may give you better wind data, but cleaning the station from snow in the winter or any debris in the rain gauge will make it much harder. Also I recommend grounding the station from potential lightning strikes.

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