JWK's Tropical border

I thought you might be in the "I just want to log data to PC" camp Actually it may not be as useless as it was - newer models supposedly have better screens.

The weather station is white-labelled, but I now know it is made by Fine Offset and often referred to as "Watson" and the model I have was generally sold under the product code WH1081 (or WH1080 which has an automatic clock using radio signal for Sync.). Here's are examples:

Weather Station Information
Weather station

It will record for quote a long time (a month or two) so if your PC goes offline for a bit it doesn't matter as it will catch-up when the software is restarted

Maplins have what looks to be the same beast, but its £125
USB Wireless Weather Forecaster : Professional Weather Station : Maplin Electronics

EDIT: Found one for £60, hopefully they have a store near you:
Weather Station
and £80 here:
Waters & Stanton PLC W-8681-MKII Wireless Weather Station

The supplied Software ("Easy Weather") is pretty lo-brow, and I use: Sandaysoft > Cumulus

Cumulus has a pretty display of current readings, and hi/lo for last 24 hours. You can input an "offset" for each sensor, so if you can accurately measure it you can "calibrate" yours, but not retrospectively (although all data is just CSV files so easy enough to fiddle with it if you need to)

Nice graph tool where you can select start/end date & time, and which sensors you want - helpful to see just HOW fast the temperature fell when the cold air came over on 7th Feb.



Cumulus will upload to Wudnerground. Pointing your browser to a Wudnerground station and setting to current date on your weather station it refreshes automatically, and you get the little Goggle Map with your weather station centred, and then if you press ZOOM OUT (say) 4 times you will see other weather stations in your area and how temperature / wind speed compares. You can waste hours doing that initally!!

Cumulus also have a forum about EasyWeather / FineOffset:
Sandaysoft • View forum - Fine Offset/EasyWeather
might be worth asking there what the cheapest recording weather-station you can buy is or, at the very least, to get to know about it warts-and-all.

You will probably need to improve the solar radiation shield. My temperature sensor soars on sunny winter days (relative to stations near me). The shield is only about 2" diameter and clearly heats up too much with the sun. I have now put a length of white 4" diameter perforated drainage pipe around it, but it still seems to rise higher than local stations, so I may have to make a better one:

Cheddleton Weather Station

 

My pleasure. as a P.S. I can't imagine that you would need one with inbuilt clock sync by radio signal (from Rugby), the clock is accurate enough on batteries, but if its on special offer don't let me stop you!

P.P.S. You could build your own from 1-Wire components. I have a book (can't lay my hands on it, so title won't be accurate) called something like "Build your own 1-wire weather station". Never had the time to do it, of course, but I read the book and understood the electronics and the software protocols etc (the components are a breeze to hook up to each other, but you obviously need tipping-bucket range gauges and cups that spin in the wind! and something that will point to where it is coming from, so you can't get away with just $20 of components)

If you decide that's the route for you give me a shout and I'll find the book and post it to you!