Timex weather station

Disgruntled of Bradley Stoke purchased a Timex rain gauge with built in thermometer earlier this year to complement his manual rain gauge, but recently it has been giving some very odd figures, claiming a minimum temperature of -8.5C, when temperatures haven't been below 10C for some weeks, and it was claiming last night that there had been 30mm of rain when there had only been 1-2mm. Time to take it back and complain.

However, on reflection, the entire design is flawed. The rain gauge is a cylindrical plastic device which you put into the garden with an electronic device kept indoors which reads the values. The problem is that for most accurate readings, the rain gauge needs to be in an open area to avoid rain shadow effects from fences and buildings. However, this means that it is in direct sunlight. The plastic absorbs the heat from the sun, and heats up internally, giving artifically high maximum temperature readings (adding 10C to the temperature in April when working this problem out). So you then move the gauge into a shady area, but then you have the rain shadow....

A traditional weather station uses a Stephenson's Screen, which is effectively a white wooden box with louvred sides into which the thermometers are placed. The white paint reflects the sun, and the louvred sides allows any hot air internally to escape, and for outside air to get in. The Timex gauge doesn't have any of this. It is a nice idea, but the execution is flawed. Buy separate temperature and rain gauge devices - then you can site them separately as each requires without having to compromise on one of the readings.