Barometers ?

[Alfie168]

What sort of on board barometers do people have, if any ? For my very small boat it would have to be small as I don't have walls of bulkhead to mount it to. I have both a traditional aneroid dial at home and a cheap electronic weather station one that shows a 12 hour historic trend, and frankly I prefer the traditional, not least as it doesn't need batteries, and because it drops large hints about the next phase of weather ?

 

[fredrussell]

Are you doing more than day sails? If not, do you even need a barometer? There’s this thing called the Met Office...

 

[thinwater]

In 35 years of sailing I have never wanted one (in the US it is NOAA). One point of data compared to a grid is pretty useless.

 

[Alfie168]

So do I give the man and woman who come in and out of their little house the sack as well ?

 

[RAI]

Nothing seems to survive on a boat. I have two barometers and two barographs. They rarely agree with one another, except in a general sense. It doesn't stop me looking at them in hope.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

I have a traditional one on the forward bulkhead where it's just too far away to read accurately from the chart table, particularly at night I also have one on my sailing watch which is quite accurate.
In order to keep up the habits which were instilled when I first learned to sail, I make regular entries in the log, hourly, two-hourly or four hourly, depending on the circumstances, and the barometric read is one of the columns. The watch baro is ideal for this as it can be illuminated at the touch of a button.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

I have a traditional one on the forward bulkhead where it's just too far away to read accurately from the chart table, particularly at night I also have one on my sailing watch which is quite accurate.
In order to keep up the habits which were instilled when I first learned to sail, I make regular entries in the log, hourly, two-hourly or four hourly, depending on the circumstances, and the barometric read is one of the columns. The watch baro is ideal for this as it can be illuminated at the touch of a button.

Mine is built into my battery monitor. Like you I keep a log of the pressure.
For day sailing it's not necessary but for longer trips it's an essential part of situational awareness.

 

[Boathook]

I have a traditional round one plus a lidl weather station one. The electronic one does show a 6 hourly trend on a bar graph which is handy and the pressure given does seem accurate.

 

[Alfie168]

I have a traditional round one plus a lidl weather station one. The electronic one does show a 6 hourly trend on a bar graph which is handy and the pressure given does seem accurate.

It's the trend as much as anything that is useful to follow and observing a barometer drop like the proverbial stone has influenced my behaviour on a couple of occasions for the wiser.

 

[penfold]

I have a traditional one on the forward bulkhead where it's just too far away to read accurately from the chart table, particularly at night I also have one on my sailing watch which is quite accurate.
In order to keep up the habits which were instilled when I first learned to sail, I make regular entries in the log, hourly, two-hourly or four hourly, depending on the circumstances, and the barometric read is one of the columns. The watch baro is ideal for this as it can be illuminated at the touch of a button.

That's it, a barometer is a bit of equipment that isn't much use unless you record its output frequently and look at the trend(or plot it on graph paper if preferred). They're also decorative if you like that sort of thing.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Dunno about others but I quite like to know what’s going on weather wise and as we’re prepping for long distance sailing we’ve got one of these:


And one of these:


In fact I’ve just bought the barograph home to make a custom shelf for it to go on a bulkhead.

 

[ctva]

Whilst we have all the modern techy optios and online 24/7 full weather forecasts for the entire planet at our finger tips, it’s still nice and tactile to tap the dial barometer or check the electronic trend one. We’ve got an Oregon Scientific one with a 24hr trend. I like it, small and accurate.

 

[GHA]

What sort of on board barometers do people have, if any ?

One of these >>

Talking to a Raspberry Pi. Cost about a quid if you don't mind the wait from aliexpress.
Way ahead of the ornaments others have linked to, resolution is high enough that you can see the change in pressure just by lifting the sensor above your head when sitting down, not sure about accuracy as it's hard to get a calibration reading accurate enough locally.
Don't really expect anyone to join in though, but plotting data is a revelation - often there's a daily dip around 10/11 am and another in the afternoon. Plus for me anyway having all the data gives extra life to the forecasts and motivates wanting to learn more. Anyone else notice how big plane contrails are and what the means?

Fascinating as a front goes over, though wind shift is so fast it's a much better indicator than pressure.
anemometer cost a lot more but the cv-7 is just as fascinating, stays on 24/7
Sea breeze wind angle is quite tightly coupled to air temperature most days.

Without recording and plotting all this on a cheap raspberry pi nearly all of the subtle detail would be lost, difference to glancing at some numbers or writing down the pressure once in a while really is like looking through the keyhole into a dark room or going in and turning on the light.

You did ask ?

 

[LadyInBed]

You could treat yourself to a watch ?

 

[GHA]

You could treat yourself to a watch ?

What - another quaint relic from the past that isn't really needed any more
This is what a tornado passing quite close looks like >

 

[Graham376]

not sure about accuracy as it's hard to get a calibration reading accurate enough locally.

This should be accurate enough for you, about 1 nm away from yard and same altitude. METAR TAF : Faro Airport, Faro Portugal (allmetsat.com)

 

[GHA]

This should be accurate enough for you, about 1 nm away from yard and same altitude. METAR TAF : Faro Airport, Faro Portugal (allmetsat.com)

You really think I haven't written a little python to log that into a database alongside the Bme280 data already metar pressure is already calibrated to a preset height, 10m maybe from memory. Matched to under 1mB - so no not accurate enough ?

 

[GHA]

How to get live ship reports -
Near-live Ship Reports by Email

 

[Buck Turgidson]

What - another quaint relic from the past that isn't really needed any more
This is what a tornado passing quite close looks like >

drop of 2.5mb in an hour and a half. It wasn't that close.

 

[Gary Fox]

How to get live ship reports -
Near-live Ship Reports by Email

Good blog, thanks for the link