I really don’t feel I can trust the accuracy of the weather flow “Tempest” when the one I have has never been accurate. I was assured the rain check would be accurate as time adjusted the readings abut it has constantly over reported the rain amounts.
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Don’t be too quick to judge the Tempest. It takes everything learned from the SKY + AIR + SPA and takes it to the next level.
It is very easy to misjudge the success of any product when you read a forum as there are posts regarding real practical issues. We tend to forget the thousands that are out there that are ok.
I have two setups, 1 in Uk 1 in Turkey. They have not missed a beat. The Uk one is in sync with my Davies. The one in Turkey is super correct especially at sensing lightning and humidity.
If there is an issue it is likely to be hardware more that software. In the case of hardware Weatherflow are brilliant at swapping out units with no fuss and in the case of software are continually refining to help give you a more accurate system. But lets not forget we are dealing with the weather.
I see lots of issues on the Garmin forums but again my units perform well and it would not stop me from buying more units.
What is key here is the backup from the manufacturer as noted above.
WeatherFlow have stepped up to ( and been seen to step up to ) their responsibilities; what more can you ask. 10/10 for openness and support - Garmin ?
The equipment and quality control is being improved continually and the next iteration tends to be superior.
Well worth the $240.
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I agree…my non-Tempest WF system has proven to be quite accurate, once the humidity issues were sorted out. And the SPA was a welcome addition.
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It’s always difficult being first. Perhaps you might wait and see how the first few thousand users of the new gear make out before making a decision.
I did read from the development group that there was really no major difference in reporting measurements. major difference was the combination of the sky and air units into one. No major changes in the software on accuracy. I had to calibrate my other system using the manual 4 inch rain gauges. I have two manual 4 inch rain gauges that measures to the one hundreds of an inch. (0.00). they measure up to 12 inch of rain fall. The WF does not allow close calibration. It may be ok for home use but not for official reporting.
They said they were going to have a lower price for people that are current customers. My system has worked perfect.
I feel that some are not getting the point. I never said it was not working. My point is that I have to have accurate rain measurements.I have 2 manual 4 inch gauges which are required for reporting. The two digital gauges one is a Ambient Weather WS-1401-IP which I can manually calibrate against the sight gauges, The Weatherflow does not have any way to adjust calibration and has been constantly off. some times way off. All weather stations are in the same unobstructed locations. The two digital stations are on a tower above all obstructions. The manual gauges are at 31 inches above the ground and within 5 yards linear from the tower base. I read the section about the tempest and the WF staff did report that the measurements from the tempest would be the same as the current WF system. Just all in one unit instead of two and the integrated solar panels. the rain and wind will still be generally the same.
If you have a consistent offset, then weewx ‘can’ do it, but it’s generally not recommended.
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yes and no, the same electronic components are used but the housing has modifications, one of them is to isolate the dome from the rest of the body so less vibrations can come up to the haptic sensor. This should help the algorithms in fine tuning the rain events with less jamming signals. Testing is starting and now we have to wait for the initial results.
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if you want accurate accumulated rain amounts, I would advise against weatherflows solution. It is already amazing that by listening to the sound of the drops they can get an impression of the amount and size. That is probably very inaccurate by itself, only by adding enough drops the average might come near the real value. I don’t know about the tempest, but the current version has a specified accuracy of 25%. Tempest is supposed to be a little bit better, but that kind of accuracy isn’t any good for official reporting. The advantage of the weatherflow system is that it can react to the first drop of rain and it is a really fun innovative way of measuring rain.
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but that kind of accuracy isn’t any good for official reporting.
You might be right, but I think it’s a bit early short of seeing actual data from the field testing, and early result from hundreds of units in the field.
The technology is relatively new in production, but the underlying idea goes back at least to the late 70’s, probably earlier than that. I tried a graduate program in the late 70’s where one of the first things a professor asked me to look at was using pulses from a piezo sensor for rain detection/measurement. I went onto other pursuits, but academic folks have working on this problem for decades. New DSP techniques and other advances may get there, too soon to know.
Even a rain gauge is not perfect. How many rain gauges are needed to get more accurate reportable results? 3, 4, ?
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I agree with your assessment
I feel you have a point here.
If you are a weather person that wishes to amend the data as you have a tried and tested manual system for comparison then having that ability would be brilliant; however that is not the purpose of the WF station. I grant it would be nice though. It would also yield the difference that WF require to assess accuracy but would require WF to add additional database and rewrite their process to account for such. @dsj
You could attach the weather display software to read the data and this would allow you to amend data.You would also build up the annual graphs etc.
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I’m very comfortable with all WF parameters other than rain. In fact I trust them as much or more than my 24/7 FA VP2. However I’ve kind of given up on rain data ever being accurate. In fact, if I double my indicated WF rainfall for a given event, I’m probably much closer to being on target.
This is why I’ve always contended the ideal setup would be a conventional wireless tipper integrated into the WF system.
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I too have just given up on WF rain. Other than that I am a real fan of WF and it is my go to for my weather on my ranch, especially since they now have “Feels Like” on the initial WF data page.
For rain I have a nearby Davis which is fairly accurate, and a sight gauge. But as mentioned above that may merely be the rain at that very small locale with other amounts elsewhere on my ranch. Mountain weather can be very local not only with rain but wind
Wind at my house can be much much less than my neighbors ranch 1/2 mile away but 700 feet of elevation higher.
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I have found that, at least in my area, the rain check feature is not as accurate as the readings without it, so I no longer use it. It consistently modified the raw readings to be much lower than they should have been.
Two sky, one high, one low, and a VP2 in-between the two in elevation.
Actual in a manual gauge was 0.31 so the VP2 was basically on the money plus/minus me reading the meniscus on the manual gauge correctly. The three units were very close in the heavy rain around 6am, FWIW.
I considered the Tempest, but ultimately decided against it. I have not been happy with the accuracy of my WF Smart Weather, and I saw no indication that my current problems would be fixed.
Rain: Readings can be 100% higher or 50% lower than comparison to a nearby manual rain gauge.
Humidity: Doesn’t get stuck at 100% for days any more, but now gets stuck at 99% for hours after the humidity has decreased.
Lightning: I can’t get the detector far enough from my house that my heat pump (and at least one other electrical device) doesn’t set off false positives.
Wind: No idea, I don’t have a good reference.
I’m glad some people are getting good results, but if you’re claiming your weather station is accurate, not just consistent, you really need to compare it to a reference.
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I do agree 100%. nice for home use as long as precise accuracy is not needed.