A few years back I was at a sporting goods store and noticed a weather station for sale.  The price wasn’t too bad and I always thought it would be cool to have one.  The weather station was the Oregon Scientific WMR112A.  It had a console connected to an outside baro-thermo-hygrometer, rain gauge and anemometer.  The outside units were wireless and solar powered but had backup batteries for night.

I got the station home and realized I would need a pole of some type to mount it in the backyard.  I went to Lowe’s and got the necessary parts.  I installed everything and it worked like a charm.  It provided many years of use but a few months back the anemometer stopped sending the wind speed.  I thought the batteries may have died and after taking some things apart, it started working again.  However, a couple of months later, the wind speed wasn’t being tracked.  So, I figured it was time for a new one.

How does this relate to astronomy?  At first, I used the weather station just to see the temperature and the wind speed.  But weather is very tied to astronomy.  If it is cloudy or raining, you can’t see the night sky.     So, I realized I could justify a new weather station to go with new focus on astronomy.