Your special climate

Wouldn’t it be nice to know when a frost is about to hit your garden? How about knowing rainfall totals so you could turn off the sprinklers for a few days? Wouldn’t if be fun to know how the weather readings in your microclimate compare with the official ones at the local office of the National Weather Service?

Gardeners might consider installing a home weather station. The electronics revolution, especially the emergence of wireless technology, has put highly accurate but affordable stations within easy reach of anyone with a little outdoor space. And today’s home weather stations are simpler and smaller versions of the same instruments used by the professional weather forecasters.

“Spokane is a great place to observe the weather. It has a lot of different climate regimes within the city and then there are the places like Deer Park and north and south,” says Charles Ross, whose home station is at an elevation of 2,700-feet on the west side of Browne’s Mountain.

Bob Lutz, another long-time weather observer in the East Valley, echoes Ross’ comment.

“The weather (in the area) isn’t the same,” he says. “I grew up in the Midwest where it either rained or snowed, but not both like here. I had to find out why.”

For both Ross and Lutz, weather watching is a passion that has evolved into their professions. Ross is a hydrologist with the Spokane office of the National Weather Service, and Lutz, who has watched weather since he was 10 years old, has been a part of the Spokane media weather forecasting community for over 20 years.

Ross’ and Lutz’s stations collect data on temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and rainfall amounts. The raw data is transmitted either by a cable or wirelessly to a receiver inside the house. The indoor receiver displays the data on a screen for easy viewing of real-time weather conditions.

Ross has networked his wireless receiver to his computer, so incoming data is automatically downloaded into a program called Virtual Weather Station. The program then allows Ross to create all kinds of charts and graphs, as well as store the information in a database.

Lutz keeps track of his data by manually entering it into a data base.

Either way, both men can draw from their data to tell you exactly when the first frost arrived or how much rain fell overnight and then compare this information year to year.

Ross likes his computer program because “it works with so many different types of weather stations. It does all the work for you.”

Both Ross and Lutz share their information with other weather observer networks like the Weather Underground and the Citizen Observer Network.

“The (National) Weather Service and other organizations around the world get the data and use it. It fills the gaps between first-order reporting stations,” says Ross.

Home weather stations are not complicated to install or use. Most packages come complete with all the instruments you need and require only a post for mounting. Ross’s station is a Davis Instrument Vantage Pro. The main body houses all the instruments except the wind speed indicator which needs to be placed higher to read correctly. Ross mounted the instrument cluster on an aluminum pole set in concrete.

Lutz has two stations, a Questech 5001 and a Peet Bros. He says that when you are passionate about weather, one station isn’t enough.

Ross’ instrument is powered by a solar cell with a battery back-up for night and cloudy days. The wireless transmitter can transmit the data several hundred feet on a line of sight to the receiver.

Ross sited his station on a hillside 150 feet from his house; the most open, sunny spot he had. Ideally, it should be 40 feet from trees, but he says that may be difficult for most people. Even he had to compromise and put his about 20 feet from some pines, where it got the best sun and was open to the winds.

“You want it in an open area away from any heat traps or sinks like a house. You don’t want your temperature sensor near a window where it’s affected by (house) heat or under the eves where the rain gauge won’t read correctly,” says Ross.

Lutz put his stations inside louvered boxes on the back edge of his yard. They are similar to the ones you see at weather stations anywhere, and they shade the instruments from daily extremes but still give accurate readings.

Maintenance is pretty simple. Ross wipes the dust off after the summer and cleans debris out periodically. As we talked, he found the wind had blown a pine seed into the rain gauge, plugging the drain hole.

Ross, the self-described weather geek, says he was willing to fork out around $500-$700 for his unit.

Lutz put in around $1,500 saying of his passion, “I wanted the best.”

Both agree, however, that you can buy a good accurate set for as little as a $100-$200.