I've wanted a home weather station that connects to my computer and gives me current and past weather for a long time now, but, until recently, have not seen anything that seemed just right.

As I was walking through Costco the other day, I came across a package that looked really good and it was marked $55 so I bought it.  As it turns out, they must have marked the price incorrectly since the same unit shows up as $199 everywhere else.

Anyhow, that is just background.  I got the thing home and set it up in an hour or two and find it is quite fascinating and very useful.  The indoor unit connects wirelessly to the outdoor unit that measures rain in real time along with temperature, humidity, wind-speed and direction at a distance up to 300 metres, according to the literature.  Mine is 120 feet away.  The indoor receiver connects to the computer by USB.

The local public media forecasts give some indication of what the expect, but not when, but together with a basic understanding of fronts and how they pass through, this station helps plan the next few hours -- and that is important in beekeeping. 

Sitting in the house, I really don't know what is happening outside, but with this thing I can take a glance and know the temperature, wind speed and direction and the likely trend.  At this time of year, the wind swings 360 degrees in a matter of hours and sun can turn to rain just as quickly.  A squall just when several hives are open and bees are disturbed can be hard on everyone.

I'm so pleased that I thought I'd share this discovery in hopes others find it useful.  Setup was not entirely intuitive when it came to the software and the Internet connection to wunderground.com, but I got it done and, FWIW, anyone can visit
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=51.560%2C-113.315&sp=IABSWALW2
for current conditions in my yard or
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=IABSWALW2
for a graphical history.

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