We live out in the country, in a little village six miles from the nearest town. We also run experiments that need good weather and climate data. When we grew potatoes with market gardeners to study most effective planting methods, we needed precipitation, sun, temperature, and other data for our analysis. We designed and built a solar hot water system, which depends on the sun for heat, so knowing how much solar radiation we’re receiving is important. Ditto for our solar panels.
There is something to be said for an analog weather system: pressure monitor, thermometers that measure minimum and maximum temperatures, a wind vane and anemometer, but logging this data would be a huge time sink.
This last week, we splurged and purchased a personal weather station. This little plastic gadget measures temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, rainfall, UV, solar radiation, and barometric pressure. We also picked up some extra temperature gauges. These go into our greenhouse, cold food storage room, solar hot water heater tank, and other experiments we want to monitor.
You can have a look at the current and previous conditions in Cooksville by visiting our weather station on any number of websites and apps.
Weather Underground
You can find us at station KWIEVANS7 on the popular Weather Underground site and app for Android and Apple.
Ambient Weather
The Ambient Weather Network also has a “dashboard” where you can find the Low Technology Institute — Weather Station. You can also find us on their app for Google and Apple.
PWS Weather
PWS Weather is a network of personal weather stations, where you can find lowtechinstitute on their webpage.
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