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Wonderful For Kids (Big And Small): Home Weather Stations

Article Summary: I loved science when I was a kid - still do, as a matter of fact. I loved doing science projects for school, and one of my favorite projects was to construct a homemade weather station. It was mostly made from things you might find around the house: knocked-together wooden planks, milk cartons, nails. But I had a blast making it, and learned a lot from the whole experience. As a result I have always had a fondness for Meteorology - the study of weather patterns.

I loved science when I was a kid - still do, as a matter of fact. I loved doing science projects for school, and one of my favorite projects was to construct a homemade weather station. It was mostly made from things you might find around the house: knocked-together wooden planks, milk cartons, nails. But I had a blast making it, and learned a lot from the whole experience. As a result I have always had a fondness for Meteorology - the study of weather patterns.

So, when I turn the pages of my local hobbyist catalog, I am transported to that earlier time, when with a few boards and nails in hand, I constructed a weather station and filled it with equipment that I largely made myself. It was crude, not fancy, but in most cases it worked with a fair degree of accuracy - and I learned so much from my experience that I decided to write this article to share some of my insights with you.

Fix this firmly in mind: you have 2 choices. You can either go outside to take your weather equipment readings, or you can stay inside and get your readings off of an instrument panel. Those are your options. Stay inside or go outdoors.

If you want to go outside to take your readings (the old-fashioned method), then you will need to make sure that your instruments can be completely stored outdoors (not all models can). You will also need to locate your equipment in some sort of a shelter - typically made of wood or metal, with louvered vents. And of course, you will be forced to go outside - even when it's cold and rainy - to take each day's reading.

If you decide that braving the elements on a below-freezing day is not your cup of tea, you can purchase weather equipment that comes in two parts. One part stays outside, the other part will give you the instrument reading, and this part stays indoors. Both are connected to the other via a cable (or wirelessly if you wish).

If you are just getting started, you will want to invest in the following instruments: rainfall indicator, barometric pressure gauge, wind direction and speed indicator, and humidity gauge. Some of these are sold as an integrated weather workstation unit, with an indoor 'dashboard' that will give you your equipment readouts.

As your knowledge grows, and you decide to invest in more advanced equipment, you can purchase such obscure things as a thermo-hygrometer (it measures humidity and temperature, giving you a 'heat index'), or a baro-hygrometer (which measures humidity and barometric pressure). You may not care much at this point, but some weather persons believe that the wireless units do not give as accurate a reading as the hard-wired types (just thought I would mention it).

Make sure that you understand this: most of this stuff is not cheap to buy, so if you are thinking of buying it for the kids at home, you better make sure that they REALLY are interested, or else you may have a weather station worth hundreds of dollars just sitting idle on your back porch. But many families find that a home weather station is a great all-family activity, especially in homes with older teenagers, or perhaps just parents who, like me, never grow tired of discovering something new about this great planet we all live on. Happy forecasting!

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About the Author:
Kelly Gillis
About the author: Kelly Gillis has timesaving tips to help you enjoy your backyard. To learn about backyard landscaping and gardening and home weather stations visit her site.