Weather instruments, like home weather stations or professional handheld weather meters, are of help tools for monitoring your immediate environment. They will provide information that a local weather man (meteorologist) can't. Apart from the handhelds, which are typically used month in month out for professional, sports, and research applications, home weather stations are typically most popular from the fall & winter when the conditions are most active. Afterall, the weather reports can be extremely boring throughout the summer months. But, there aren't many issues with weather stations that hamper their performance over the winter months, these issues you have to be obvious the farther north your going into the norther Us and Canada.

What on earth is this issue?

Batteries.

The colder it gets, the worse they perform.

Most car batteries (flooded lead acid & deep cycle) are able to offer specifications regarding performance degradation as being the temperature changes. Unfortunately I've got yet to discover such information offered by manufacturers for NiMh rechargeable AA batteries or some other types. So, I assumed I would write this quick article to give you some numbers to not forget...

Alkaline Batteries... Think freezing

You will probably have these to have the capacity to provide capability to your outside home weather stations

sensors to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Celcius). The chemistry starts to have problems below this temperature, and unless your batteries are a newcomer, you may see weak batteries fail altogether (vehicles may work again indoors whenever they warm-up a bit, so don't necessarily throw them out!)

NiMh Rechargeables... Below freezing

These batteries can get below freezing, approximately to 15F (-10C). But, vehicles will function, they're going to lose some capacity, so be ready to recharge them oftener than normal and keep them working.

Lithium AA's... A good choice

These are the relatively recent Lithium AA camera batteries by Energizer & others. Lithium is among the most reliable chemistry in cold, getting down the small sum of -20F (-30C). Remember that these will not be rechargeable like other lithium cells, and really should NOT be positioned in a NiMh AA charger.

A different note...

With regards to portable accessories weather instruments, and home weather stations with remote sensors which include LCD displays, you'll see that although you may might be using lithium batteries, the display goes blank slightly below freezing. This is due to the LCD becomes inoperable in freezing temperatures. Not to worry though. Either maintain meter close to you soon you need to take against eachother for a measurement, or maybe trust which the device is registering data although you may can't view the display. Home weather stations will display the remote sensor data for their indoor screen, therefore you will know if there's a problem.

That about covers it. Don't end up being frustrated with all your weather station performance until you've tried a few lithium batteries. Notably if you are into your cold weather by November!