Instead, one of the questions I probably get asked the most is this: What weather websites do I use the most?

bezte.ca/weather

The hands-down winner is my own website. After more years than I care to say, I finally updated my website about eight months ago. Now, I am not a web developer by any means, but I used to do some dabbling in HTML coding years ago. So, how hard could it be to update my website? A lot harder than I thought! Lucky for me, I am pretty good at looking at examples of coding used on other websites and figuring things out, at least to some degree. Using that knowledge and some good website-building lesson sites, I think I patched together a half-decent website. Oh, I should mention, that my website on a smartphone is a little pared down compared to a computer or tablet, though most of the links are there.

In all honesty, while I like sharing my data with whomever wants it or finds it useful, my main purposes for the site are to check on the weather conditions at my place when I am not around, and to have easy access to the weather website links that I use the most. So, besides my website, here is a list of my favourite sites that I find most useful, along with a brief description of them.

www.tropicaltidbits.com

While it might sound strange that a tropical weather website is my go-to site, what I find useful on the site is the link to the forecast models. This gives you access to all the available weather models and lays it out in what I find to be a very easy-to-use and understandable manner. I mostly use the Global and Climate links on the Weather Model page. Under Global you will find the GFS weather model, which I think is one of the more accurate models. You can also find a link to the CMC weather model, which is the Canadian model. This model can be more accurate when it comes to weather patterns originating out of the north and in the winter. The Climate link gives you access to several medium- and long-range weather models. The easiest way to see what is available on this website is to check it out and play around with all the different types of maps that are available. The links on my website under Wx Models will take you to the weather models I use the most on this site.

www.weather.cod.edu

This weather website is brought to you by the College of DuPage. I mostly use this site for satellite images. On my website the links would be found under Sat./Radar. On the DuPage site the satellite link is found under Weather Analyses Tools. I am all for having a lot of choice and with this site that is exactly what you get for satellite images. There are 16 different bands or wavelengths that allow you to view what is going on in the atmosphere above North America, ranging from visible and infrared, to vegetation or snow and ice.

http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2

This link can be found under my Fcst./Sv. Wx menu and is called “14-day outlook.” This link loads three images of North America. The first two images show the forecasted mean temperature for each of the next two weeks. The final image shows how those temperatures will compare to average. This can give you a quick look at what the upcoming temperature trend might be. You usually have to check this link every day to see if forecasts are holding their predictions from day to day, or if they are changing dramatically. Dramatic changes over a short period of time tell you there is not a lot of consistency in the weather models and we may be seeing a change in the overall weather pattern.

https://kamala.cod.edu/Canada/latest.focn45.CWWG.html

The link on my website for this site is called Discussion and is found under Local Wx. As the name implies, this is the significant weather discussion issued by the Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Centre. The discussion gives a bit of a deeper insight into the weather and thought processes of the people creating the forecasts across the Prairies. Sometimes it’s a little short and lacking information, while other times it goes into great detail. Either way, it’s almost always an interesting read.

https://weather.gc.ca

Good old Environment Canada. I still like using it for forecasts, local conditions, severe weather watches and warnings and weather radar. I don’t always agree with its forecasts, especially after looking at the weather models myself, but I find it helps to either confirm my own forecast thoughts or it makes me take a second look at the weather models. As for watches and warnings: as it is the one issuing them, it only makes sense to go directly to the source.

I don’t have room to discuss all of the links I have under “Misc. Wx.” Maybe we’ll look at those in an upcoming article. Until then, have fun checking out all the links mentioned above and be sure to let me know if you have any questions.

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To begin with, if you are just looking for a low-cost station that gives you an indoor console to display the data and that simply measures indoor/outdoor temperatures, humidity and barometric pressure, there are plenty of options out there. Some of these systems are better than others. I’ll have to admit, I usually pick up one of these from Canadian Tire every year or two as they often have these systems on sale for some great prices. I like to take it with me when I am camping, or if I need to take temperature measurements in my greenhouse. Just remember, like most things in life, you get what you pay for. These stations usually only work a couple of years before something goes wrong and they need to be replaced.

For those of you interested in a full-blown weather station, I still think the top choice is one of the Davis Instruments personal weather stations. These stations start around the $500 mark. The basic system is the Vantage Vue, which will give you all the weather data you need to gauge current weather conditions, including indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, dew point and rainfall. You’ll also get weather forecast icons, moon phase, sunrise/sunset times, graphing of weather trends and alarms. It will show you data trends over the last 25 days and if you add a data logger, you can connect it to your computer to collect and display all your weather data. It comes in one neat package allowing you to easily install it in just minutes.

Next up from the Vantage Vue is the Vantage Pro2 Weather Station. This is the one I have. It has all the same features of the Vantage Vue along with options to add additional sensors. For example, you can add additional temperature and humidity sensors, solar and UV sensors, and leaf wetness along with soil moisture and temperature sensors. It takes a bit more effort to set up, as the wind sensors are separate from the temperature and rainfall sensors, but for me this is a positive, as it allows you more options on placement to ensure you are getting good readings. For example, my wind sensor is placed higher off the ground and in a more open area to ensure I get more accurate wind readings. I keep promising myself to add soil moisture and temperature sensors, but other items seem to take priority each year. I know there are cheaper systems out there that do much of the same things, but I can say from experience, the Davis stations just keep on working year after year, with minimal maintenance. After 21 years of using weather stations, I am only on my second Davis station and after doing the math I calculated the cost to be right around $55 a year – about the cost of the cheap station!

Human hair

Finally, there are the traditional styles of weather instruments, ranging from simple rain gauges to flashy barometers. One of the most interesting ones I came across last year, still one of my favourites, is the Fischer Instruments 115.01 laboratory-grade outdoor thermometer with a human-hair hygrometer. It runs for around $100, looks nice, and is just a neat, accurate and great weather instrument that will generate lots of conversation around it.

There are plenty of websites and stores where you can find these stations and instruments, some offering better deals than others. I’m not really able to say from which place it’s best to get your weather stations, as prices often change significantly from site to site and time to time. The best practice, as with most purchases, is to figure out exactly what you want, then go and search out the best deals. One website I have given in the past as a good starting point is AmbientWeather.com. I have no affiliation with this site; it just has the largest listing of weather stations and instruments I know of, each with good write-ups describing the items.

So, if a weather station or weather instrument is in your future, get out and explore what is available. There are literally hundreds of different weather instruments available, and if you go by the adage that you get what you pay for, you can’t go wrong! I would like to take this time to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and I hope you get some perfect holiday weather, whatever that means for you.

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According to Nathon Kucherhan, supervisor of Meteorological Services of Canada, based in Winnipeg, the upgrade includes all new infrastructure: cable, signal and power structures and masts, junction boxes and sensors.

“Working over a two-week period in October, the weather itself wasn’t too kind, as the abundance of moisture did cause some difficulty for staff,” said Kucherhan, “but as we look at the site today, the parameters are enhanced with an all-season precipitation amount gauge, three snow-depth sensors, three snow targets, two metre wind sensors, triple temperature versus a single, and a new humidity sensor.”

The upgrade at Shoal Lake doesn’t place the site within aviation standards, but the quantity and quality of data used for numerous climatic activities will increase.

“Sensor placement is the same at every station across the province,” Kucherhan said. “Data from local monitoring stations is reported to Winnipeg, and from there it goes to CMC Montreal where it is collected based on quality assurance and quality control.”

It’s been just over a year since the Rural Municipality of Yellowhead and the Shoal Lake Airport Authority approved a request from Environment Canada (now known as Environment and Climate Change Canada) to expand and modernize Shoal Lake’s surface weather station.

Kucherhan said Shoal Lake is on a grid system with other communities across Manitoba, and falls under 1,300 surface weather and climate stations within Canada.

Meteorological Service of Canada provides Canadians with the information they need to make informed decisions to protect their health, safety and security in the face of changing weather and environmental conditions.

Accurate and timely forecasts and warnings are critical to the Canadian economy, where many industries including agriculture, energy production, transportation and forestry are directly affected by weather conditions.

The primary users of this data include the Public Forecast Office, to support forecasts for southern Manitoba; the media, to provide current conditions in and around the community; Environment and Climate Change Canada climatologists, to use in their research; the community of Shoal Lake and the local farmers, to know the local conditions.

Situated northwest of Shoal Lake, the airport is the main medi-vac location for the communities in this part of western Manitoba, so the need for accurate wind conditions is essential. Due to this, the Town of Shoal Lake contacted Environment Canada in the early 1990s, requesting that a weather station be installed at the airport. The project proceeded, with the assistance of the Shoal Lake community, that contributed to the initial build by holding fundraisings to raise money for some of the instruments.

Prior to the installation of the automatic weather station in 1993, the area had a volunteer climate-observing program. The modernization and expansion of the station will ensure that the provision of valuable weather data will continue in a way that keeps up with the current standards in both quantity and quality.

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In the world of buying weather-related items, things haven’t changed that much over the last five or so years. Ambient Weather still has the most complete list of weather instruments available anywhere, so I find it the best place to begin your look. Where you end up buying from is totally up to you; I am in no way connected to Ambient Weather or any other supplier of weather-related equipment.

With computer parts getting ever cheaper and the demand for personal weather stations growing stronger, the price of these weather stations keeps coming down. With home-based weather instruments and weather stations becoming more and more popular, there has been a significant increase in the number of instruments and stations available. More competition almost always leads to better prices. That said, let’s take a look at what’s available this year.

If all you are looking for is a simple weather station that will give you the outdoor temperature, humidity and barometric pressure, you have plenty to choose from. The majority of these units comes with fairly impressive indoor consoles that easily display all the weather information. They will usually automatically record daily maximum and minimum temperatures and most will store and display around five days of weather history. They all come with a minimum of one wireless outdoor sensor that can usually be placed upward of 100 feet from the indoor console, but the actual distance you’ll get depends on which structures are between the indoor unit and the outdoor sensor. These stations typically cost anywhere from $25 to $50. That said, you can usually find one of these stations on sale at Canadian Tire for less than $15, and for a quick check of outdoor temperatures you can’t beat these little stations. I always take one of these portable stations with me while camping and they work great. They typically only last a couple of years, but for $15, what can you expect?

Price points

For those of you looking for a full-blown weather station that records temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, along with precipitation, I’m happy to say prices for these stations continue to drop. When I first bought my weather stations they cost about $1,000. That same station today, about five years later, even with the exchange rate, is about $850. Where the biggest changes have taken place is at the lower end of the weather station scale. You can now get a decent starter station that offers all of this and also allows you to connect the station to your computer, starting around $100.

Now, like anything, for the most part, you get what you paid for. Five or 10 years ago these $100 weather stations were unreliable and flaky. Today these stations are generally fairly solid and will give you several years of reliable data. So why spend the money on higher-end stations? First off, they tend to work day in and day out, sending data to your receiver every second or two. I know with my Davis station I get surprised and annoyed when it stops working for some reason. Why? Because it just works, period. Usually the reason it stops working is because I’ve ignored a “change battery” message for too long. Even though they are solar powered, they do need a backup battery for nighttime — and in our environment, winter nights tend to be pretty long.

If I had to make a personal recommendation it would be to buy a Davis personal weather station. I’ve been using their weather stations for nearly 15 years now and have had very few problems. These higher-end weather stations are built better, record data more precisely, and download the data more often. They start in price around $250 and can go all the way up to over $1,000. Davis makes the Vantage Vue station, which has all the bells and whistles you would want for recording everyday weather all in one easy-to-install package. If you want to customize your station a little bit, or you want a little more control over where you place the different sensors, I think your best bet would be a Davis Vantage Pro2 or Vantage Pro2 Plus station.

I currently use the Vantage Pro2 Plus, and it allows me to place the rainfall and temperature sensor in one area and the wind sensor in another area. It also gives you soil moisture and leaf moisture sensor options, along with additional temperature sensors. Add in a data logger and you can store up to several months of data without having it connected to your computer. How much data you can store depends on how much detail you want. For example, I save my data every five minutes and can store about two weeks of data. Change that to every hour and you now can go for about six months.

For those of you looking for smaller, more unique weather items, we’ll take a look at some of the more interesting ones soon. Stay tuned!

The post Weather station ideas for the early Christmas shopper appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

When it comes to purchasing a weather-related gift for that special person in your life, then I personally think the sky is the limit. OK, maybe not, but it should work that way! For fun I thought I’d begin our look at holiday weather gift ideas by taking a page from some of the stars and look at the ridiculous amount of money you could spend if money were no object. I spent some time trying to find super-expensive weather gadgets all blinged out in gold or diamonds, but interestingly enough, I couldn’t find any. Go figure. Maybe people who are into weather aren’t that strange after all. If you think spending $500 or so on computerized weather stations is crazy, you could buy a complete Weather Hawk station for the low price of about $6,000! Not sure what makes these stations so special, but if I had one, it better not ever break down!

On the low-tech side of things, the most expensive item I could find was a barograph that came in around $2,500. A barograph is basically a piece of graph paper attached to a slowly revolving drum, which, through a pen attached to an analog barometer, keeps track of the atmospheric pressure. This type of instrument is fairly old in design and thus has an antique look and quality to it. Would I like to have something like this? Sure! Would I spend that kind of money? No way!

More modest

Now on to the more reasonable items. I’m going to start with the least expensive items I found available at different Canadian stores and websites. One of the best is the La Crosse wireless thermometer. Its regular price is around $25, but you can usually find it on sale at Canadian Tire for about $10. This little gadget will tell you the time, indoor temperature and outdoor temperature, all without having to run a wire. As long as you don’t place the temperature sensor too far away from the receiver, it works fine. The batteries seem to last forever. I’ve had two of these over the last five or so years and even though I have a complete weather station at home, I find this great to take with me when we are away from home camping, at the cottage or what have you.

Now, if you want to step it up a notch and get a full-blown weather station, I personally would not recommend spending the money on a hardware store version, even if it is on sale. If you want to invest in a weather station that will work well, be easy to install and last for years and years then, at least in my opinion, your best bet is to get a Davis Weather station. There are several models available, but for simple ease of use your best bet is the Davis Vantage Vue. This station pretty much does it all. Temperature both inside and out, humidity, wind speed and direction, air pressure and rainfall — all in one nice little bundle. Add in a data logger and then you are good to go with backing up data, looking at it on your computer, and even sharing it. All for less than $500 including tax, if you look around a little bit.

If that price tag is a little high and you still want a full-blown weather station, then your next best bet is a higher-end La Crosse station or an Oregon Scientific station. Now, with these stations you have to be careful as they put out a number of different units, some of which might leave you wanting more. If you are interested in a low-cost full weather station, then I would be leery of spending less than $200, unless it’s on sale.

If you are looking for something more modest or unique, then consider a Galileo thermometer or a Stormglass. They both work using the same basic principle: changes in pressure of an encapsulated liquid due to either changes in temperature or pressure. The Galileo thermometer is relatively inexpensive at between $10 and $20, and will show you the temperature based on the buoyancy of different glass balls floating in a liquid. The Stormglass works off of changes in pressure, which in turn causes crystals to grow or shrink in a contained unit. This one is a little more expensive at around $150 and I’ll have to admit, I’ve never actually seen one in person, but they are really cool!

One of the best gifts for someone interested in weather is a rain gauge. They come in both digital form and your good old basic cylinder. Oregon Scientific makes several different digital rain gauges that work fairly well and can be found for around $50. If you’re looking for a good old-fashioned cylinder rain gauge, the best one I have come across is the one provided by CoCoRaHS. It’s just that simple. Looking around, I’ve seen equivalent rain gauges and the cheapest I found was the Stratus Long Term Professional Rain and Snow Gauge, which sells for about $75 before tax. While there are plenty of other cylinder-style gauges out there, these large gauges work remarkably well and can handle large rainfalls and record rainfall over long periods of time without losing much to evaporation.

Well, I know this might not have been too much help, but I do hope you have a great time looking for that perfect gift this holiday season.

The post Gift ideas for the weather aficionado appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

For those of you interested in getting yourself or someone else started with a computerized or digital weather station, but not sure if this is for them or yourself, and you don’t want to spend too much money, there are a few relatively cheap stations available locally. If you look around at your local hardware store you will probably see some kind of La Crosse weather station available. La Crosse has been making weather stations for years now and for the most part they work as advertised. I have owned a couple of simple indoor/outdoor wireless La Crosse weather stations and they do the job of letting you know what the outdoor temperature is from the comfort of inside your home. I bought both of the stations on sale for only about $10, so the fact that they worked for two to three years before giving up the ghost is not a bad deal. I guess that is the key point with basic wireless stations that cost less than $20: don’t expect them to last forever.

The next types of stations you will find locally are priced in the $50 to $125 range. If these are simply indoor/outdoor wireless weather stations that also provide you with a forecast, then I would say they are not worth the extra money. You should be able to find a simple wireless indoor/outdoor temperature station for around $20 (see above). The extra they want for the station trying to provide you with a forecast is just not worth the money. You will find that most of the time the forecasts provided by the station are not even close to being accurate.

I have seen a few weather stations that give you wireless indoor/outdoor temperatures, wind speed and even rainfall in the $125 range, but I have never seen one in person, nor have I talked to anyone who has tried one. On a personal level, I get a little nervous about spending this kind of money on a weather station that may only last a year or two. I feel if you are thinking about spending this kind of money on a weather station, you are better off biting the bullet and going for a well-built station that has a good warranty and will likely last for five years or more. Before we take a look at a couple of these types of stations, here are a few more interesting weather knick-knacks that are available if you look around.

Something relatively cheap that almost anyone will like is a simple but easy-to-read large outdoor circular thermometer. These thermometers can be mounted just about anywhere and can be read from a pretty good distance away. Just be careful to mount them so the sun does not shine on them directly. In the winter this will just give you an unusually warm reading; in the summer this could not only give an incorrect reading but end up ruining the thermometer!

Another good item in the $20 range is an old-fashioned-style rain gauge. While there are some stand-alone digital rain gauges around, at this price point I personally wouldn’t waste my money on them. These old-fashioned graduated-cylinder-style rain gauges are usually very accurate, and if you spend a little extra they can serve a dual purpose of being a lawn or garden ornament as well as a good conversation piece.

Now on to the big-ticket item: the full-blown home weather station. Once again there are full-featured weather stations available for the home that are priced in the $100 to $150 range. Chaney, La Crosse and some of the low-end Oregon Scientific stations are in these price points. Now, I’m not saying these stations are bad, as I have not had the opportunity to try one personally, but with the knowledge and experience I have with much-higher-end stations, just be prepared for some limitations with these. If you are looking for a full weather station that can be connected to your computer and even allow you to post your weather data to the Internet, here are a couple of stations that I would recommend.

I am a little biased in this area as I have been using Davis weather stations for 15 years. Currently I am on my second weather station and the only reason I changed was that I wanted to upgrade my station. With that in mind, the best value, I think, for a full weather station is the Davis Vantage Vue wireless weather station that retails for around $350. The next step up is the Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather stations. The basic cabled model starts around $450, with the wireless station starting around $500. The nice thing with this station is you can add extra sensors such as wireless solar, UV, soil moisture and even leaf moisture sensors, making this a truly fully functional farm-based weather station. All of these features do end up costing with each addition, coming in around $200 to $250. The nice thing is that you can add them one at a time when you can afford them: birthdays, next Christmas, Groundhog Day, hmmm… let’s see… when else?

The post All I want for Christmas is a weather station appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

CO-OPERATOR CONTRIBUTOR

Last issue we began our look at what s available for the weather enthusiast on your Christmas list, and we started off by looking at several different weather instruments that are available for under $50. This week we ll continue our look, but will bump up our price range. Don t forget to check out www.AmbientWeather.com for probably the most complete list of weather instruments available anywhere.

If we start looking in the $100 range there are several interesting instruments available. In this price range we find the starter packages for complete wireless home weather stations. These stations get better and better each year. While they still can t compare to the high-end home weather stations, for the beginner or youngster out there they are a great place to start. There are several different companies that make weather stations in this price range, with some of the best coming from La Crosse and Oregon Scientific. These home weather stations come with an anemometer (wind-speed and wind direction), rain gauge, outdoor temperature and humidity sensors, indoor temperature and humidity sensors and barometric pressure. These stations are also able to calculate dew point, wind chill and heat index values.

Also in the $100 price range, if you are more of a traditionalist, is the starting point of some really good classic and antique weather instruments that feature wood, brass and glass finishes. These weather instruments can measure pretty much anything the computer-based home weather station can, and come in several different styles. The traditional style is the three-dial station that displays temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. In higher-quality instruments, for this price range you can get a single-dial station that usually includes temperature and humidity.

A couple of interest ing weather gadgets at this price range are the portable lightning detector and the portable wind meter. While most portable lightning detectors are much more expensive, there are a couple of fairly simple ones. These fit-in-your-hand devices can detect and warn you of lightning strikes as far as 50 to 60 kilometres away, by indicating lightning using LED lights or having a tone play. As with the portable lightning detector, portable wind meters are fairly expensive, but there are a few available at this price. Kestrel makes a dedicated wind meter in this price range, while Ambient offers a hand-held wind meter that also includes temperature, humidity, dew-point and a compass.

Now it s time to move on to the high-end price range, which for the most part, is between $300 and $1,000. At this price range you can pretty much get the weather station of your dreams. There are several traditional instruments available in this price range. For example, you can get an old-fashioned barograph for about $1,300, but I will leave these types of weather instruments for you to discover if you are really interested. Instead, I am going to concentrate on full-featured weather stations.

Considerations

There are several things you ll need to take into account when you buy a full-featured weather station, and they include accuracy, range, cost, reliability, support, ease of installation, maintainability and computer software. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for, and it s pretty rare that a $300 weather station will outdo a $600 station. There are a lot of different weather stations available in this price range, but the two most popular or common are made by Davis Instruments and Oregon Scientific.

The station offered by Oregon Scientific is the WMR200 and sells for about $300. While this system offers the full range of instruments it does score low in its ability to accurately measure barometric pressure and rainfall. While it does have the option for ultraviolet (UV) detection it does not have the ability to record solar radiation. Overall the WMR200 scored an OK result according to Ambient Weather. Looking around at the different home-based weather stations sharing their data online, I only found a couple of Oregon Scientific stations.

By far the most popular and overall the most reliable home-based weather stations are made by Davis Instruments. Davis has come close to capturing the home-based market by offering easy-to-install, reliable and reasonably cost-effective weather stations for over 15 years. The two most popular stations offered by Davis are the Vantage Pro/Pro2 and the Vantage Vue weather stations. The main difference between these two stations is that the Vantage Vue was designed with all the weather instruments fully integrated into one easy-to-install package, perfect for the home user. The Vantage Pro/Pro2 has more options available for it, including where to install the different sensors and the ability to add additional sensors such as soil moisture and leaf wetness. Both stations are highly reliable and will give you years of service. If you do plan on downloading your information to a computer, you ll need to get the additional data logger; this will bump up your final price by about $120.

Finally, if you are a real weather geek or you need to have access to a full weather station while on the road; Davis has come up with a rooftop-mounted version of the Vantage Vue station. Now that would be the ultimate Christmas present!

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Also in the $100 price range is the starting pointof some really good classic and antique weatherinstruments.

The post More Christmas Weather Ideas appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

CO-OPERATOR CONTRIBUTOR

Over the last five or so years the interest in home-based weather observation has increased dramatically. At the same time, the availability and afford-ability of these systems has also increased (I m not sure which is driving which). When I first decided to start observing and recording the weather at home, about 15 years ago, there were not a lot of choices for the home consumer. If you had a lot of money there were a handful of weather stations to choose from, but if your budget was more modest, there was not much you could get and what was available was not very good, especially if you wanted to go electronic. Today, that has all changed!

Each year in late October and early November I like to take a look at what is out there, and try to provide some insight into what you should be looking for if you want to buy yourself, or someone you love, a weather station for Christmas. With the fairly strong Canadian dollar, buying online is becoming more and more attractive. This year I am taking the approach of looking at various weather instruments available based on different cost levels. Before I get to this, I do have to point out that I have no affiliation with any manufacturer or company that sells these products. Also, I don t get freebies to test out, so most of these recommendations are based on the manufacturer s reputation, discussions with different users, and my own insight. I do tend to use one website in particular ( www.ambientweather.com) since it easily offers the most comprehensive assortment of weather hardware out there.

To begin, let s look at what you can get for under $50. As far as I was able to determine, you cannot get a reasonable full weather station for under $50, but you can get some really neat and useful instruments. The first of these would be a hand-held wind and temperature meter. There are several of these instruments available, and while at the high end they can be several hundred dollars, there are a few available in the $30-$40 range. These instruments will tell you the wind speed in pretty much any unit of measure you could want, along with the temperature and wind chill.

One of the handiest instruments you can get for under $50 would be a wireless, self-emptying rain gauge. Oregon Scientific, La Crosse Technology and Honeywell all produce several different types of rain gauges. While some are simply rain gauges with an indoor console for monitoring, others have thermometers included. Most of these are fairly reliable, but they do require batteries.

Another very popular item in this price range is a wireless indoor/outdoor temperature sensor. There are several different types to choose from and they are getting better each year. Some new ones now also offer humidity sensors. I believe it will not be long until we see full-featured weather stations in this price range.

An interesting new offering this year is a wireless weather station for little kids called Wendy the Weather Wizard. This station has an outdoor temperature sensor and an indoor display. The display uses icons to show the changing of the season and it also has an animated icon (Wendy) that shows you how to dress for the outside temperature. This unit can also double as an alarm clock it even has a snooze feature!

If you are interested in conventional weather instruments there are several really good ones available in this price range. Spirit thermometers are probably the most popular conventional weather instrument, and while you can get these from pretty much any store for a few bucks, there are higher-quality ones available. These are usually made of brass and come in both table-top and wall-mounted configurations. Another interesting type of traditional thermometer is a maximum/minimum thermometer. These traditional spirit thermometers are designed so that they record the maximum and minimum temperature each day, but they do need to be cleared daily.

Traditional rain gauges are another item in this price range, and like the thermometers you can find a whole bunch of cheap plastic gauges at nearly every local hardware store, but if you are looking for something a little nicer there are some alternatives. One of the most popular is a Vermont-style rain gauge. These have solid brass mounts and nice, clear, easy-to- read catchment cylinders. They also come with a lifetime guarantee.

If you are an outdoors person there s a neat little handheld device avai lable that combines a thermometer, barometer, altimeter, clock and compass. If you re doing any hiking, camping, skiing or boating and want to keep up with the weather, this just might be for you.

Well, I am out of room for now, but there are still plenty of other weather instruments available out there. How would you like to have a portable weather station that easily connects to the roof of your vehicle? I will look at just that and many other devices in upcoming articles.

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I believe it won t be long until we seefull-featured weather stations in this price range.

The post All I Want For Christmas Is A… Weather Station! appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Contacthimwithyourquestionsandcommentsat daniel@bezte.ca.

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Copyright 2011 Agriculture &Agri-Food Canada

1 Month (30 Days) Accumulated Precipitation (Prairie Region)

May 18, 2011 to June 16, 2011

Prepared by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s National Agroclimate Information Service (NAIS). Data provided through partnership with Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and many Provincial agencies.

0 mm

0 -5 mm 5 -10 mm 10 -15 mm 15 -20 mm 20 -25 mm 25 -30 mm 30 -40 mm 40 -50 mm 50 -60 mm 60 -70 mm 70 -80 mm 80 -90 mm 90 -100 mm 100 -125 mm 125 -150 mm 150 -200 mm

200 mm

Extent of Agricultural Land Lakes and Rivers

Produced using near real-time data that has undergone initial quality control. The map may not be accurate for all regions due to data availability and data errors.

Created: 06/17/11

www.agr.gc.ca/drought

This issue’s map shows the total amount of precipitation that has fallen across the Prairies over the 30-day

period ending on June 16. From the map you can really see just how wet it has been across western and

central Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and much of southern and western Alberta.

The post Weekly weather map – for Jun. 23, 2011 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

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1 Month (30 Days) Percent of Average Precipitation (Prairie Region)

May 4, 2011 to June 2, 2011

Prepared by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s National Agroclimate Information Service (NAIS). Data provided through partnership with Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and many Provincial agencies.

< 40%

40 -60% 60 -85% 85 -115% 115 -150% 150 -200%

200% Extent of Agricultural Land Lakes and Rivers

Produced using near real-time data that has undergone initial quality control. The map may not be accurate for all regions due to data availability and data errors.

Created: 06/03/11

www.agr.gc.ca/drought

This issue’s map shows the amount of precipitation that has fallen across the Prairies during May compared

to the long-term average. From the map you can see that pretty much all of agricultural Manitoba saw aboveaverage

amounts of precipitation during this period with a large section seeing more than double the average.

Wet conditions were also present in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta with dry conditions continuing over

northern sections of those two provinces.

The post weekly weather map – for Jun. 9, 2011 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.