Great Gifts For Him: Weather Stations and Forecasters

Find a weather station or weather forecaster for the guy in your life...

I'd think it was just my husband, but his first weather station unit came from my own Dad as a Christmas gift, years ago. Beyond the traditional thermometer, the intriguing device had animations for rain, sun, clouds, along with displays related to the current temperature, indoor and out, and current humidity. My husbands love of watching the clouds, predicting the storms, and knowing what was predicted for upcoming days, jumped to a new level, as the device gave him a means of monitoring conditions at home from one main station.

We've gone through a couple such stations, since, and a home temperature monitoring system really has become helpful to me, and the rest of the household, as well. We can monitor the conditions in the house during the summer, evaluating performance of our swamp cooler. We can easily evaluate the conditions in fall, getting a bit of a jump on that first frost, which destroys any last bits of produce attempting to ripen in the garden. In the desert Southwest, a smart household plans around the conditions, and the heat is much easier to compare to weather records on television or in the newspaper.

 Many of today's smart phones have weather apps which give a good deal of information about local conditions, predictions for the next several hours and/or days, and even radar animations.  However, the drawback is often based on the fact that the bases for temperature readings are not all located in the same place.  In our rural community, the readings at the center of town often differ significantly from those at our home, on the outskirts.  Having utilized my husband's weather station for several years, we have a good comparison in extreme weather, knowing that winter lows at our home will be about 10 degrees lower than the predicted lows.  This has helped me to plan well in the fall, rescuing produce just in advance of the first frost. 

 Meanwhile, summer highs may be 10 degrees higher at our home than on predictions given through weather applications.  This helps us to plan well for making ice to keep the swamp cooler functioning, and for keeping up with water for the animals on our small ranch. 

My husband has worked outdoors much of his life, and loves to watch the clouds, guessing about storms and predicting conditions. You don't have to be a meteorologist to prognosticate the weather, and weather gadgets are lots of fun for my husband, as he continues to refine his amateur weathercasting skills. There are many weather gadgets available for your amateur!