Personal weather stations have evolved greatly over the last few years and are more affordable than ever. 

Why would I want one?

            Same reasons as having cell phone and personal gratification like having your pizza deliverd.

            If it's storming over your house, you can check the wind speed and and have it recorded.

            It's not really just a guy thing, but it is compared to having a backyard charcoal grill when you have a perfectly good stove in the kitchen.  It's basically another tool to see what the atmosphere is doing right now and through your computer, you can see it on your mobile device when your not home.

           Just about every farmer in the US always had a rain gauge and a barometer and that was all they needed.  Those are still the two most basic tools in meteorology.

           Personal weather stations take those basic steps a jillion steps further into the modern age.  They can download data directly to your computer and all over the internet if you wish, but they still rely on the traditonal method.

           In the last 2 years, almost every weather station has become wireless.  Although most require changing batteries every year, some higher end models use solar power. 

           The biggest difference in weather stations is if you want to connect them to your computer.  If you plow snow and need accurate records, then you want that.  If you have a weather site where you want to share information to others, then you can do that.  If you travel a lot, but always want to know what the weather is at home, then you need one that connects to your computer.

           Just about every weather station has the basic wind speed, direction, 4-day forecast, current temperature, humidity, dew point, highest wind speed, highest and lowest temperature, and some higher models have an electronic rain gauge.

           You can get a decent weather station that does not connect to your computer for less than $100, and are wireless.

           The low end of the higher end that feeds to computer begin at about $150 and go from there up to $1,000, with the average being about $250.

           Regardless of the weather station, I strongly recommend having NWS manual rain gauge.  They are about $50 and last for over 10 years.  They can measure up to 13" of rain and can measure snow as well.  The gauge I use is exactly what the NWS uses.  Even though I have thousands of dollars of fancy equiipment, this gauge is remains my trusted reliable source as well as my old fashioned barometer.  I use these to keep my machines accurate.