New Weather Station

It’s still somewhat surrounded by buildings and trees, but off the carport was the best we could do. One big difference we’ll see is in temperature readings. The outdoor sensor for my old unit is on the back porch in the shade. Those are the temps I’ve used in all of my garden notes posts. The new unit will record highs in the sun, which will mean a big difference in my record keeping. In other words, our summer highs will be a lot hotter on record!

The lows differ as well, but not necessarily because one is more accurate than the other (although that could be a contributing factor). The variances are also due to the location of the thermometer. A thermometer records the temperature of it’s exact location. Place ten thermometers around your property and you’ll likely get ten different readings at any give time. We see this in a rather dramatic form on bank temperature displays, where the reading is made on an open sunny black-topped parking lot. It displays a bazillion degrees while the weather guy on the radio is reporting something entirely different. 

Generally, a sunny location for an outdoor thermometer is not recommended. In this case, though, shade would also change the wind and rain readings. A really good web article explaining all the things that influence temperature readings can be found at Smart Wise Home. I’m thinking maybe I’ll keep the Acu-Rite where it is and record both temps for awhile. 

I’ll be keeping my old rain gauge as well, because I’ve noticed that the two units record different rainfall amounts. The Logia can record rain rate (inches per hour) and doesn’t seem to need emptying, so I’m wondering if it calculates rainfall totals by rate and time. That’s something to look into.

Price-wise it was about $100. That was enough for me to do some careful comparison shopping before buying, but it’s really on the cheap side for this kind of weather station. So far, so good, so I think we bought the right one.