Tempest review by WCNC TV chief meteorologist Brad Panovich

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In short: glowing review. If you’re on the fence about buying, this will give you a ton of information…

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How does this station do against your Davis station you used to have?

Thanks,
Tim

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Awesome review by the way.

Tim

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I just posted his review here - to ask him a question, either find him here (if he’s even here) or leave him a message at the YouTube link.

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I got a reply back from him.

Thanks,
Tim

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I’m located in Mesa Arizona (Phoenix area) and procured the Tempest to evaluate the innovative Rain and Wind sensors of the Tempest in particular.

We have two “seasons” when measurable rain and / or wind is experienced. These occur during July/August and during December/January/February/March.

My Tempest has been installed since April and a few days ago we had our first measurable rain since installation of the Tempest.

The other equipment installed is a Davis Vantage Pro2, an Ambience WS2000, a Rainwise Wireless Rain Gauge and a Stratus Raingauge.

Rainfall during a short thunderstorm measured on the previously installed instrumentation was consistent for all devices within 0.01 inches while the tempest showed rainfall of 3x of these values.

Windspeed measured by the Tempest was consistently less than 1/3 of that measured by Davis and Ambient wind instrumentation during the same time.

Of course I am disappointed with the apparent inaccuracy of the innovative features of the Tempest as currently implemented on my device but hopeful that some software improvement may occur which can at least partially justify my expenditure for the Tempest installation.

I should mention that the other more conventional features of weather parameter measurement for the Tempest agree well with the previously installed Ambient WS 2000 and Davis Vantage Pro2.

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The “mothership” (WF servers) will will apply calibrations to your readings over the first few weeks of operations, and you should see your accuracy increase. The haptic sensor isn’t a perfect solution - it’s main advantage is lack of moving parts. For my purposes, that’s a trade-off I accept, especially since my readings are now seemingly quite accurate.

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April is way more than a few weeks for wind sensor calibration to take place. This is 4 months of use in service. I thought there wasn’t any server api calibration for the wind speed?

Tim

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I think the wind calibration is all on the Tempest device it self. Might want to open a support ticket.