About
What got me to do this? Hmmm. Good question. My first weather station arrived in 2002, but the history of Pete's Weather Station goes back a little further. Growing up, getting the weather involved listening to radio, watching the Weather Channel, or just looking out the window. In fact, my dad used to have the Weather Channel on nearly 24 hours a day. I guess that could be part of the problem. However, the real dream of having my own weather station was generated my freshman year of college in 1992.
As a freshman at Beloit College, I discovered the internet. Of course, this was a few years before "the Web" and "Information Superhighway" took over the media. I mainly used the internet for e-mail (allenp@stu.beloit.edu), but I found I could telnet into a service, the Weather Underground, that offered weather conditions and forecasts for about any area of the country. When you have a track meet at Ripon College, this was a live saver. It might be 50 degrees in Beloit, but the forecast could call for snow later in Ripon. It was pretty obvious when the distance guys had cold weather gear, and the sprinters just had windbreakers. No matter how good the internet was for getting weather forecasts, I wish I had my own weather station as I often ended up relying upon the Weather Channel and time and temperature phone number for local conditions.
Finally, in 2002, I decided to get my own weather station. The first station I got was a La Crosse WS-2310. It was a nice station to start out with, but it wasn't completely wireless. I didn't have an ideal location for it either at my old apartment. That's why I got a new station when I moved into my condo.
My current weather station is the Oregon Scientific WMR968. It consists of a base unit with 2 wireless sensors for indoor temperature/humidity, 1 for outdoor temperature/humidity, 1 for rainfall, and 1 for wind (anemometer). All of the outdoor sensors are solar powered. The rain gauge and anemometer are located on the roof our our building.
Pete's Weather Station is located in the Uptown area of Chicago. It's about 3 blocks from Lake Michigan.
Besides this website, I also upload my weather data to the Weather Underground. Type in your zip code and find a weather station in your area! Now, you can also get Pete's Weather on your desktop with a Windows Vista Gadget.