20 February 2015 Update

The La Crosse Weather Station discussed below has been replaced by a Netatmo Weather Station. See my review for information about the weather station now used at Cassiopeia Observatory.

Original Report

The Chief Financial Officer (ie, wife) got tired of the weather station at the local fire department going offline, so we purchased a La Crosse Technology WS-2811OAK-IT Professional Weather Center with Solar Wind Sensor. On Monday, 9 January 2012, I set up a mast and mounted the various components, which took a little less than 4 hours. I was supervised as I made some of the mounting pieces:

These photos show the components as mounted:

Thermo-Hygro Sensor
outdoor temperature and humidity
receives data from the other two sensors and transmits it to the display unit

Wind Sensor (top of mast)
wind direction and speed
solar powered
Rain Sensor (middle of mast)
rain amount

The weather data is displayed here:

Wireless Display
pressure, temperature, humidity, wind, and rain amount

I hope to be able to post the weather data online at some point. The supplied Heavy Weather software (Windows only) communicates with the weather station when run in Parallels Desktop (WinXP) on my MacBook Pro. But since I have no desire to run Windows all the time, I am currently looking for a Mac OS X weather app that will receive data from the weather station. Unfortunately, the ones I have tried so far (WeatherTracker, WeatherSnoop, Weather Display, and Lightsoft Weather Center) only support older and discontinued La Crosse weather stations. If anyone knows of a Mac OS X weather app that supports the WS-2811, drop me a note. Thanks.

The observatory was not opened on Monday, 9 January.

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