Have you tried a wooden pole instead of the pipe? It may not pick up the high frequency vibrations as easily as the pipe might and reduce the false rain readings you’re getting. I’m using an 8’ viny coated closet rod from Home Depot.
Just finished putting together this standalone station next to my Tempest for my Cocorahs Rain gauge.
3 Likes
Hello my fellow weather watchers! Just received my station and decided to mount it about 10ft off the ground on a pergola. So far the wind measurements are spot on!
I’m wondering how long before my station shows up on places like Weatherbug and Wunderground. Any ideas? Confirmed my station data is set to public.
I do see it on the tempest wx site, so it appears telemetry is good.
2 Likes
To publish on WeatherBug, you need to request technical support.
Integration into W.U. is part of the Tempest setup.
1 Like
Here’s mine alongside my older Davis Vantage. It’ll be interesting to see the difference between the two stations.
7 Likes
New Tempest owner. I have had the unit for about 2 weeks now. My original mounting was on the end gable of the shed on a steel chainlink fence top pole extending about 7 feet above the roof peak. This is where I had an Accurite 5-in-1 until it died. It performed quite well there. Last Friday we had a storm system go through and all was well with all sensors recording as expected. The rainfall was accurate until the end of the storm. Wind and gusts during the rain were in the 2-16 mph range and rain accumulation was about 5 inches. As the front came through and cleared out the rain the wind increased to 22 mph gusting to 35 mph and the rain had stopped. But… the Tempest said that the rain increased to “Extreme” and over a 45 minute period the accumulation increased to 10 inches while no rain was falling at all.
Since then, there have been a few wind gusts up to 25 mph and no false rain.
So, I researched the false rain issue and figured the vibrations were from the metal pole and/or the metal shed. I originally planned to site the Tempest further out to the edge of the pasture in a more open location. Yesterday I put a T-post in about the spot I want to site it and zip tied a 6" piece of rigid pvc pipe to the top. It is currently at about 5 feet above the ground. The T-post is not touching the fence. I took down the Tempest and mounted it at this new location. My intention is to verify it will still be able to communicate with the hub from there and the false rain is no longer a problem. The shed location is 105 feet from the hub and had an RSSI of about -43. The pasture location is 241 feet and has an RSSI of -66. I expect this to improve when I put in the permanent mounting at about 16 feet above the ground. The mount will be a 14 foot 6x6 set 3 feet in the ground, so will be 11 feet high with 5 feet of pipe above it. I will purchase an 8 foot piece of 1 inch sch 80 pvc for it. Total height above ground will be 16 feet.
Next storm system is forecast for this Friday, so 2 days to find out how it performs in the new location.
Old location on shed.
New location on edge of pasture.
6 Likes
The first half of the storm system has gone through. The Tempest didn’t pick up much wind at all in this location, so not a real good test for wind induced false rain. There are higher winds with gusts up to 50 mph forecast for this evening, so I scrounged together some stuff I had laying around and made a longer pole. It consists of a 10.5 foot chainlink fence top pole, an 8" piece of sch 40 heavy duty 1" pvc pipe, a 1" gray pvc coupler and a plastic plug that fits the hole in the bottom of the pole perfectly. I hot glued the plug in after warming up the steel pole first, then cleaned and pvc glued the coupler to the other end of the pole and glued in the 8" pvc pipe. The plug should keep the hole from whistling in the wind and the short section of pvc pipe will hopefully act as a vibration isolator. Then I removed the 6" pvc pipe that was zip tied to the T-post and used 2 hose clamps to attach the new longer pipe to the T-post.
My main issue with this location is the storm is coming from the southeast and that is in line with a row of cedar trees and the barn. Standing by the Tempest the wind was almost calm even though the treetops are swaying and whistling is a 20 mph wind according to the weather at the airport 5 miles away. This pole moved the Tempest from 5 ft above ground level to 15 feet. The indicated wind is higher now, but still only half of what the airport is reporting. I guess I either need to accept this situation or find a different mounting location. I have trees all the way around the house, so on the house isn’t really a good option. I may go back to the shed but have to figure out how to effectively isolate the mount from wind vibrations in the steel building. I know there are vibrations in the building, you can hear them when the wind is strong.
Hmmm, just reviewing the history during the time I redid the pole. Seems when I was using the impact driver to tighten the hose clamps on the pole the Tempest registered “Extreme” rain. Not very encouraging. The T-post mount is temporary until I can get the 14 foot 6x6 pole and get it installed in concrete. The pole is slightly swaying in this wind and the ground is a bit soft in that area. I hope it doesn’t loosen up and fall over.
Looking in the direction the wind is coming from.
1 Like