Everybody knows a person who is obsessed with the weather; who knows, maybe you are one. That is how my family is. As far as they are concerned, the television could stay on weather news non stop. They call each other to find out how the weather is “there”, even if the other person is only a couple of miles away.
Except for me that is.
I can’t stand waiting around watching reports of areas that have no affect on where I am. Internet weather reports are better, and at least I can get the information instantly. The problem is that since I live so far from a major city, most of the news does not exactly match my location. That is where the Professional Weather Center from La Crosse Technology comes in.
The La Crosse Professional Weather Center provides all kinds of information on what the weather is exactly where you are as well as predictions on what the weather will do. According to the La Cross website the Professional Weather Center has the following features:
Time display (manual setting)
12/24 hour time display
Calendar display (weekday, date, month, year)
Time alarm function
Weather forecasting function with 3 weather icons and weather tendency indicator
Wireless outdoor temperature (°F or °C)
Wireless outdoor humidity (%RH)
Records MIN/MAX temperature and humidity with time and date of recording
Low/High outdoor temperature and humidity alarm
Relative air pressure (inHg or hPa)
Barometric pressure with 12 hour history graph (in inHg or hPa)
LCD contrast selectable
Low battery indicator
Wind direction displayed in 16 steps
Wind speed ( mph, km/h or m/s, and Beaufort scale)
Wind chill ( ° F or ° C)
MAX wind speed with time & date of recording
High alarm function for wind speed
Manual reset of outdoor temperature/ humidity, pressure and windchill data
Total rainfall (inches or millimeters)
Storm warning alarm
Buzzer on/ off selectable
Storage of 200 sets of history weather data recorded in 3-hour intervals
Wireless transmission at 915 MHz
Transmission range up to 330 feet (100 meters)
The Professional Weather Center has four components: The 9.84″ x 6.45″ x 7.58″ wind sensor which resembles a small weather vane with a fan blade mounted on the bottom to measure the wind speed; the rain gauge, which is a rectangular cup measuring 5.51″ x 2.75″ x 5.39″ that catches and measures the rain water; the 2.25″ x 2.44″ x 6.18″ thermo-hygro unit, which sounds complicated but simply measures the temperature and pressure; and the 8.9″ x 6″ x 1.25″ display unit, which is large enough to be easily readable even with the unit sitting across the room.
The most complicated and time consuming aspect of setting up the weather center is finding the best location for these components. Once that is done the actual install is pretty simple, and all of the mounting hardware is included.
The Wind Sensor measures wind speed and direction. It needs to be mounted so that there is nothing protecting it from the wind. I decided to mount mine on our old television antenna, above the house’s roof line. It was a pretty windy day, so this was definitely the most intimidating part of the install.
The Rain Gauge is pretty self explanatory. As long as it is mounted in an open area where there is nothing blocking it, it should be fine. The water measured does drain out of the bottom, so make sure that you allow somewhere for the water to go or you may end up with a small flood, not to mention inaccurate readings.
In addition to collecting all of the remaining weather information, the Thermo-Hygro Sensor connects to the Wind Sensor and Rain Gauge providing them with power. It also collects data from the other two units and transmits all of the information to the receiver through either the wired or wireless connection.
The receiver displays all of the weather information collected from the sensors. If needed it can be connected with the provided wire, but I am able to receive a wireless connection throughout my house.
The display of the receiver provides the date and time at the top. Below that is a graphical display of the weather forecast. The two data sections below that display the temperature, rain, and pressure readings. By pressing the display button you can cycle through the various views of the information such as the indoor or outdoor temperature, amount of rain in the last hour or day, and pressure readings. The bottom section of the display shows the wind speed and direction.
I have found that the Weather Center has done a great job of providing all of the weather information I could want. Personally I have found the rainfall records to be the most useful feature. We keep a fairly large garden, and it has been really helpful to have an accurate measurement of the amounts of rain we have received in our exact location.
The Professional Weather Center can be found on the La Crosse Technology site, and is available at Amazon as well as other retailers.
MSRP: $159.95
What I Like: The entire package. It did not take terribly long to setup and provides all the information I could ask for.
What Needs Improvement: Not much in my opinion. It works as advertised.