[ABH3 Boyer]

I am a fair weather sailor on the great lakes. I also don't have tons of cash to spend on my boat and accessories. As a matter of fact with my slip going up 7% this year my boat fund is low on cash flow. Keeping all this in mind I saw this weather station at home depot.

Features
Self-Calibrating Forecasting pulls data from your location to give you the most accurate forecast for your exact location
Scrolling Weather Ticker streams real-time information
12 to 24 hour weather forecast
Indoor outdoor temperature (ºF or ºC) with trend arrow
Indoor / outdoor humidity (%RH) with trend arrow
Barometric pressure with trend arrow
Wind speed: current, peak, and average MPH, KPH or knots
Heat index, wind chill and dew point
Multi-variable history chart: barometric pressure, temperature and wind speed
Weather minimum / maximum records: temperature, humidity and wind speed
Automatically adjusts clock and calendar for daylight saving time DST
Wireless technology transmits data through walls and long distances
3 features built into one sensor: temperature, humidity and wind speed

All this for the low price of $89. I'm sure I could mount it at the top of my mast and have the screen in my cockpit. Seems like an inexpensive way to get a little extra info to aid in my sailing pleasure. So why would I spend many times that cost for one designed for a boat? I would guess there are many people with opinions about this just chomping at the bit to tell me this is a bad idea so have at it. I would like to know if there is a good enough reason for me to not make this purchase. Keep in mind that I'm sailing a 26 ft trailer sailor on lake Erie and never too far away from the marina unless I'm sure about the weather.

 

[RichH]

'Weather stations' are good for personal usage (especially if they can be reasonably 'calibrated') ... but really require that one have the beyond basic 'meteorology' knowledge to be of benefit to be able to alter the broadcast, etc. info for accurate predictions for local/regional personal use.
An example to gain such knowledge: Mariner's Weather Handbook: Steve Dashew, Linda Dashew: 9780965802826: Amazon.com: [email protected]@[email protected]@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/[email protected]@[email protected]@51GCXEnibHL Youre not going to like the price.

 

[knuterikt]

I'm curious about the "12 to 24 hour weather forecast", how can it make a good forecast based on only local measurements?
Wouldn't you be better off with a windex and weather forecasts on radio/tv/internet?

 

[BarryL]

Hey,

What information are you looking for? It will be great for temperature, barometric pressure, less great for wind information. The only problem with home type weather stations is the update rate. If you can find it, see how often the wind information is updated. It's probably every few seconds. That's certainly better than nothing, and good enough for casual use, but not often enough for racing. You will get the apparent wind only, not true wind. Lastly, the screen is small so it will be difficult to read from the cockpit.

How is it powered? If it's battery, how long will the batteries last and what will you do when they die? If it requires power to be run, do you have it (correct voltage, etc) and how will you run the wire?

I have a Davis Scientific weather station at home:
Davis Vantage Vue Weather Station | Ambient Weather Forecaster
It's great for home use but I would not want the large sensor mounted at the top of my mast.

The advantage of the typical wind / speed / depth information is that the sensors are tough enough for years of use, they are powered from the ship battery system, and the displays are rugged and large enough to see from the helm and they update multiple times per second. You do pay a hefty price premium for them.

Barry

 

[Donna_F]

I second RichH's suggestion to learn to read the weather yourself. Here is a thread with some book recommendations:

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/weather/181441-good-books.html

(moving this thread to the Weather forum)

 

[RichH]

Wouldn't you be better off with a windex and weather forecasts on radio/tv/internet?

A test for the validity of the broadcasted wide area forecasts .... simply ask farmers, outdoorsmen, coastal sailors and offshore fishermen etc. of their opinion and blind trust of such forecasts.

For anyone who sails the US East coast, please raise your hands if you think NOAA regional and marine forecasts are all that 'accurate' ... and who will testify that if one depends on solely on NOAA or NOAA derived forecasts one will miss a lot of 'good sailing' due to the seemingly and increasingly 'risk adverse' (hyped?) nature of these forecasts.
Also another raised hand for those who have 'been surprised' at times to find completely & significantly different 'local' weather conditions from 'predicted'.

;-)

 

[MikeOReilly]

Not sure why you would spend any money on this sort of thing if money is tight. VHF will give you gvt forecasts. Eyes will give you local knowledge. And if you want more data you can get a cheap thermometer and barometer for far less.

 

[bljones]

All of the above advice plus a good selection of wind sites, like windalert, windfinder and windguru. They all have good coverage of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

 

[svzephyr44]

'Weather stations' are good for personal usage (especially if they can be reasonably 'calibrated') ... but really require that one have the beyond basic 'meteorology' knowledge to be of benefit to be able to alter the broadcast, etc. info for accurate predictions for local/regional personal use.
An example to gain such knowledge: Mariner's Weather Handbook: Steve Dashew, Linda Dashew: 9780965802826: Amazon.com: Books Youre not going to like the price.

Agree on Dashews' book. Download it for free (totally legit - they put it on the site) at MARINER'S WEATHER HANDBOOK - DOWNLOAD FREE

 

[SHNOOL]

On our little landlocked puddle, we don't have access to some of the better online wind forecasting tools, and I've used the ones that purport to work for our area... My experience has been it doesn't come close to observation... Nothing beats knowing the Beaufort scale up and down.

I've often thought about having a weather station at the club/dock that I can login to from home. Now THAT would be somewhat useful. Barometer would also show the trending direction of weather (improving, or getting worse).

My suggestion is to invest in a decent windex, and barometer.. forgo the weather station... and buy some decent tell-tales. Oh by all means memorize this:

 

[knuterikt]

A test for the validity of the broadcasted wide area forecasts .... simply ask farmers, outdoorsmen, coastal sailors and offshore fishermen etc. of their opinion and blind trust of such forecasts.

For anyone who sails the US East coast, please raise your hands if you think NOAA regional and marine forecasts are all that 'accurate' ... and who will testify that if one depends on solely on NOAA or NOAA derived forecasts one will miss a lot of 'good sailing' due to the seemingly and increasingly 'risk adverse' (hyped?) nature of these forecasts.
Also another raised hand for those who have 'been surprised' at times to find completely & significantly different 'local' weather conditions from 'predicted'.

;-)

I was not commenting on the quality of US weather forecasts
But I doubt that this weather station is any better. It can give some observations about the current weather.
The only help for prediction is the barometric pressure where changes can give a indication on short term weather changes.

 

[miatapaul]

I would go into a used boat supply house and pick up a Barometer, That is really all you need, and is likely all that unit is using to give a "forecast." If the pressure is dropping, your in trouble, if it is rising you will loose your wind. I would not be surprised if there was not an app for your phone to use built in sensors.

 

[RichH]

I guess my comments are for addressing the 'squash zones', etc. of varying localized pressure you get when continental air masses collide with maritime air masses ... typically along 'east' coasts that have predominant westerlies as their usual weather flows ... the 'bombs' that can occur and whether they are regional (usually predicted) or teeny as what 'sailors' etc are usually 'surprised' with ... sometime only ~5-10 miles across.
The far southern Chesapeake, especially the closer one gets to the bay mouth and 'Hatteras' and also at Cape May, etc. is really where 'non-localized' broadcasts fail.
A good sensitive barometer is needed when there is the possibility of weather 'bombs', even for the localized teeny ones.

The Dashews' book is a great source for figuring out these localized and very rapidly intensifying anomalies .... and long before you see 'real time' indications as from "SailFlow", an other 'real time' reporting to the internet sites, etc.

BTW/FWIW - I really like the "radar weather" APP on an iPad, etc. for figuring out which direction to go 'through' or to avoid the 'worst' of thunderstorms, etc. which along and near the East Coast can instantly form right on top of you.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

Barometric pressure with trend arrow

Multi-variable history chart: barometric pressure, temperature and wind speed

All this for the low price of $89.

When I was last in the USA with my boat I bought one and its excellent!

It did die in the butt ater I left the USA and so I couldnt do a warrenty job on it.

The wind speed wont help on a boat for sailing as its average over 6 seconds or something like that and to sail with you need direction etc instantly.

The barometric pressure memory was great and thats the basic reason why I bought it.

The weather forecast bit is a bit of a toy, but kinda works. It takes two weeks of recordings then predicts from that.

I will definitely buy another when I get back to the US later this year.

BTW I notice some of the responses to this thread belittling this type of unit... For $89 I can not see why it should be belittled. There was an excellent range of them in the shop I bought mine, Home Depot or Walmart or somewhere. Jus try to find one with the longest recording of the barametric pressure.

Mark

 

[ABH3 Boyer]

my sole reason for wanting it is to know wind speed. I don't really worry about the forecast. If its iffy I don't leave the inner harbor

 

[Don L]

If you have a smart phone and are never going to be that far from shore, why would you buy a "weather station"? You can just go onto NOAA etc and get the forecast and buoy data.

 

[miatapaul]

I have had two different weather stations, no wind but inside and outside temperature, but the outside temperature gauges seem to last about a year or so (whatever the warranty is) but were nice. I would like to get one with more memory to track highs and lows for my father as he is an avid gardener and has one of those mercury thermometers that you reset with a magnet. But if you forget to reset it you don't know if it was yesterday or two days ago. But I get him to answer an email so I doubt he would figure it out! (well he is in his mid 80's)

 

[chuck5499]

my sole reason for wanting it is to know wind speed. I don't really worry about the forecast. If its iffy I don't leave the inner harbor

Do you have a wind speed indicator on your boat at the top of the mast??? If not get one and yes it will be a bit expensive but very useful when sailing.

As for the wx station we got a weather tech one a few years ago and i imagine like the $89 home depot but no wind. In 8 years of cruising covering the east coast of the usa, bahamas, western and eastern caribbean, an atlantic crossing and now in the med, we use the internet/ssb grib files and when in the usa noaa. We have used a professional wx router when in the caribbean, chris parker, but in meeting with him he told me that while he may give me his opinion on the wx we need to make our own forecast as well and make our decision to sail or not based on all the data we see; and we do.

Example - when we were looking for a window to cross the Atlantic we were in Antigua and talking to Chris via ssb. We also had internet and downloaded the gribs from the ssb. So we had multiple inputs. Chris told us that we had a potential window but if a front that was coming moved south it would be unpleasant. We told him we saw the same thing and in our opinion the risk was not worth it but in looking at the noaa long range model we may have a window in a week or so. We sat. 3 boats left from various islands on that 1st windown and got hammered. They did not make it across and only one had an epirp signal but not in time. Why did the boats go down? Only God knows but was it the front that got them or something else?
We waited and we got a good starting window and had a fairly good sail across.

So read the book suggested and get a wind thingy for the top of your mast that is for the boat and watch the barometer and listen to the vfh and look at the internet wx forecasts. You will get the idea after a while.

Good luck

 

[Minnewaska]

A smartphone or better yet, a tablet, is one of the most efficient tools for modern sailing. If money is tight, you can get one gen old refurbished units for very little money. A data package on a tablet is only $20-$30/mo, just don't try to stream video.

Assuming there is reasonable cell coverage in your part of the Great Lakes (Buffalo would), it combines a ton of utility in one unit: Weather forecasts, live radar, email, movies, music, internet research, books, manuals, navigation, and on and on.