WeatherFlow is a relatively recent entrant to the home weather station market, although it has years of experience. Its coastal network of stations has been delivering vital information to meteorologists for years and has proven useful (and durable) in landfalling hurricanes.
Theย Tempest Weather Stationย is WeatherFlowโs first attempt at a home weather station. For the most part, itโs a good start. Itโs the only one of our stations with built-in lightning detection, one of Tempestโs standout features, and operates entirely on solar power.
We found that the real-time lightning data matched better with data from professional lightning detection networks. It regularly detected distant lightning faster than any other station weโve tested. In addition to lightning data, the Tempest also measures indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, and UV and light intensity.
Wind is measured by a sonic anemometer which we found to be fairly accurate. And up until theย Ecowitt Wittboy, the Tempest was the only home weather station to use a haptic rain sensor.
Date of our Original Review: June 2020 โ Re-review in progress โ July 2024
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The Tempest Weather System is a weather station Iโve been watching for years. The weather station first debuted on Indiegogo in late 2016 (no, thatโs not a typo) and looked like nothing else on the market.
Many weather stations are tricky to install. That is not the case here. The Tempest had everything in a small package, not much larger than a human hand. It also promised smart home connectivity, which wasnโt all that common then. Weather stations make sense for many smart home enthusiasts since smart home devices benefit from weather data.
But itโs taken several years to reach the point where the station was ready for mass production. While the original model was eventually delivered to initial backers by 2018, the Tempest wasnโt commercially available until 2020. Thatโs a long wait.
Much of the holdup was due to a new rainfall measurement method that WeatherFlow was working on involving haptics. Whereas most digital rain gauges use a tipping-bucket mechanism, the Tempest senses the vibrations of rain hitting the top of the sensor suite. They own a patent on this technology.
It took time to get things right. But overall, the Tempest is a station worthy of your consideration if you can deal with its quirks โ which arenโt deal-breaking for everyone.
(Editorโs note: WeatherFlow spun off its weather station unit into a separate company, called Tempest. The name of the WeatherFlow Tempest is now the Tempest Weather System.)
![WeatherFlow Tempest in hand](https://theweatherstationexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/WeatherFlow-Tempest-in-hand-scaled-720x480.jpg)
Setting up the Tempest Weather System
We typically tell you to reserve an hour to install a weather station. Here, you may need as little as ten minutes if you have a place to mount the Tempest. You can mount it to the top of a mast or screw it onto just about anything using the tripod mount.
Itโs surprisingly small and light at 7.25 inches by 7.25 inches by 12 inches and just 3.5 pounds, making the installation easy. As you can see from the picture, nearly the entire sensor fits in my hand. This compact design allows for a lot less clumsy installation โ if youโve installed a weather station before, you know the sensor suites are often bulky and hard to maneuver to install.
Since everything is pre-assembled, you place the included base station within range of your Wi-Fi router and the Tempest within range of the base station. In-app setup takes about five minutes, so your station should be up and reporting within ten minutes. We had ours live in less time than that.
Lots of functionality
The app is your console with the Tempest. Data from almost every sensor updates about every three seconds, even when youโre not on your home network (Davisโ Vantage Vue and Vantage Pro2 only do when youโre on your Wi-Fi).
The Tempest reports temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and rainfall, and also includes a UV and light sensor and built-in lightning detection. Thanks to haptic technology, it can also sense precipitation intensity.
Data collected by your Tempest is sent to WeatherFlow, which is used to improve the accuracy of its local forecasts. It is also shared with the National Weather Service and others as well. As expected of a smart weather station, the Tempest supports Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT, and of course, you can share your weather data with Weather Underground.
![weatherflow tempest mounted](https://theweatherstationexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/WeatherFlow-Tempest-Sensor-on-pole-scaled-720x480.jpg)
Tempest Accuracy and Performance
The Tempest Weather System is a solid performer from the setup to real-world station use. Tempest says the station calibrates itself, so you wonโt need to calibrate any instrumentation. We have heard from some owners that this is an issue for them โ while you shouldnโt have to recalibrate, it will drift toward the end of a sensorโs usable life.
Data reports anywhere from two to 30 seconds, depending on the sensor. The instrumentation performed well compared to my Vantage Vue and a nearby NWS station.
We didnโt spot any significant issues with sensors outside the haptic rain gauge. Compared with weather stations of a similar price, it performs as well as those, if not better. The temperature and humidity readings were similar to the Davis Vantage Vue and a local NWS observing station. The sonic anemometerโs readings were also within acceptable ranges. The lightning detector is outstanding, and weโll talk about that in the next section โ it works well.
But certainly, the haptic rain sensor was my biggest concern as it is an unproven technology. Our experience was mixed. We were impressed with how quickly the Tempest Weather System knew it was raining.
In all but the lightest rain, the station was the first to detect rainfall โ often within seconds. Other stations use the tipping-bucket mechanism to perform this function, and as youโd expect, notifications are significantly delayed.
This is very good for smart home uses (i.e., your sprinkler system, etc.), but unfortunately, the technologyโs not quite there yet to measure rainfall.
The Tempest consistently under-measured rain, especially in heavier downpours. To correct this, WeatherFlow developed a feature called โRain Check.โ Essentially, WeatherFlowโs systems look at the measurements from your Tempest and radar-estimated precipitation data and combine them using a proprietary formula.
The rain gauge doesnโt work, at least in its current form. Usually completed by the following morning, โrain-checkedโ data would represent the best estimate of the dayโs rainfall. Past all the marketing, Rain Check is an admission that the issues that bedeviled WeatherFlow engineers remain.
This is one of the stationโs biggest issues and is a significant drag on our overall rating of the station. This technology doesnโt appear to be able to measure rainfall correctly. However, our test was years ago with an early unit, and weโve heard since then, the precipitation measurements have gotten much better.
![](https://theweatherstationexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_1847.png)
The best lightning detection weโve seen
Now that we got the Tempest Weather System negatives behind us, letโs return to the stationโs many positives. One of the standout features was lightning detection. We were lucky to have several storms pass through during the review period, giving us a great look at lightning activity, the stationโs most attractive feature.
The Tempest detects lightning strikes quicker and more accurately than any other system weโve tested. Our strike numbers appear to be close to reality compared to official lightning data. The way the app displays lightning data is also different from other apps.
Instead of displaying the number of strikes, the Tempest app plots each strikeโs distance along a horizontal axis that denotes the time. The resulting graph lets you see the stormโs approach and departure, including the powerful storm that passed quite close to us during the review.
The Tempest Weather System is handy for outdoor enthusiasts with excellent lightning detection capabilities.
The Tempest Weather System is good, but
The issues with the rain sensor are a bummer. I had high hopes for it, but more work is needed. But in just about every other aspect, the Tempest Weather System exceeded our expectations. Thatโs not surprising, as WeatherFlow has made commercial-grade stations for years.
The smart home connectivity is super responsive, and the voice assistant integrations arenโt as long-winded as Ambient Weather. I hope that Tempest can also nail down the issues with haptics in future releases. The way they did it here doesnโt quite work, but using haptics in a weather station is a great idea. They need to figure out how to make it work better.
At $339, we expect a little better, which is why itโs lower-rated than the Davis Vantage Vue or Ambient Weather WS-5000. Those stations arenโt taking risks on new technologies that WeatherFlow is, though. If you can deal with an inaccurate rain gauge, weโd argue that this is a good buy for the lightning data alone.
Just look at the prices of lightning detectors โ theyโre not cheap. The WeatherFlow Tempest has placed an outstanding lightning detector inside a decent weather station. Weโd recommend considering other stations first, but you might find that the Tempest meets your current needs.
I have one of the early models. Everything was working great then a couple of weeks ago the tempest dropped Wi-Fi connection. I took it down and went through the troubleshooting process, every day, multiple times a day. I guess my unit has kicked the bucket. I donโt know what I will buy to replace the tempest.
Doug โ thanks for this. When we first did this review, it was brand new, but now with a few years, weโre able to get an idea of durability.
The Tempest definitely has a nice set of features that make it attractive, but youโre not the first person Iโve heard with an early unit failing. Have you reached out to support yet?
the rain sensor is able to be calibration if you have a accurate Guage you have nearby you can send rainfall amounts and have the Tempest Calibrated
Isnโt that the โRain Checkโ though?
Their customer service is awesome. If you call them, you almost always are speaking to an individual within two minutes.
The rain sensor is not very good I have a Davis right next to the Tempest and the Davis shows .36โณ of rain and the Tempest shows .55โณ .
I tried the Tempest a few years ago (3 or 4 years ago) and I agree with all of this article. For the most part the things was pin-point accurate, except for the rain gauge! I am heavily involved with Storm Chasing and Skywarn Spotting and the rain gauge was a deal-breaker for me! We had a heavy rain here one day that my Ambient Weather WS-2000 gauge clocked at 2.55โณ total, my tempest said .35โณ and the next day when it was sunny and beautiful it jumped up to 3.02โณ. I canโt have inaccuracies in the rain gauge as that is what I use to report things to the National Weather Service during my Skywarn duties, had I used the Tempest I would have looked like an idiot AND been completely wrong. NWS uses this data to distribute Watches and Warnings so itโs imperative the rain gauge be accurate, at least for my case. I know not everyone is in the same case as I am. I havenโt tried the Tempest since, and if this article was truly written a few months ago in January 2023 it seems it hasnโt improved very much in the few years I last tried itโฆ
I too have seen dramatic later adjustments to the rain measurements on my Tempest, usually appearing the next day. My understanding is those adjustments are part of the AI powered Weatherflow data analysis done in the background (usually overnight) which combines information flows from individual home units with other data sources โincluding measurements from satellites, aircraft, radars, and other surface weather stationsโ (per the Tempest website.) The next day readings are (in my experience) generally pretty accurate. The real time haptic rain measurements are not nearly as reliable.
If supremely accurate real time rain measurements are important (as they might be in some applications) the Tempest may not be the best choice, a point this review makes clear. The rest of the sensors, and especially the mobile app and its useful, information-packed user interface, are (again, in my opinion) superior, in some cases by far, to any other similarly priced consumer weather station.
* As an aside, Tempest customer support is near instantly available and astonishingly good. The support function from the half dozen other consumer grade weather station suppliers which Iโve tried is so poor that it alone is a deal killer with regards to the likelihood of future purchases.
Itโs such a frustrating issue with the station. Everything else about it is top notch (part of the reason why we kept it an editorโs choice). I do remember during its Indiegogo days the rain gauge was the hold up. Feels like it was rushed out.
I do want to test Ecowittโs version, to see if its just Tempest or its just the concept of haptic rain gauges in general being like this.
Iโm trying to piece together how new the information in this article is, and Iโm very confused how several comments appear to be a lot older than the publication date of the article. Was the article originally written well before this listed publication date? If so, you should really list that too. Iโm referring specifically to the comments by the author about the problems with rain measurement and the early version tested.
Sean, thanks for the feedback, and we agree. Weโre making this change across our site in the next UI refresh. This review is indeed several years old, which in most cases isnโt an issue as weather stations arenโt updated like a phone would be, etc. But I have never thought of it from this perspective, which could be most definitely confusing.
Iโve had a Tempest system for over a year now. The rain sensor is always within 10% of other manual rain gauges in close proximity. That is accurate enough for me. I did have problems with the solar power module/battery built into the system after less than a year in service. WeatherFlow customer service was outstanding and reconciled the problem with a swift replacement. Overall, great instrument for my needs.
Chuck โ thanks for this. Weโre likely retesting this station soon, as the test unit we had was an launch unit. From my understanding the software has been improved โ especially the rainfall. We definitely werenโt 10% away in our tests, more like 20-30%, and the โRain Checkโ had to fix it. I think the rainfall adjustment is called something else now, though.
I mounted my Tempest sensor on the top of a fence post for an easy first installation. This exposed another negative of the construction of the sensor head; ants colonized the entire interior e contamination of the Tempest and the contamination caused the unit to fail. A major part of the failure was loss of charging capability, the solar charging could no longer keep up with the operating load. It appeared that the ON-OFF slide switch on the bottom circuit board was a main point of the fault.
After a couple of rounds of disassembly and alcohol cleaning and re-assembly for testing, the charging capability and measurements have been restored.
The tech support phone line provided nice conversation, but no offer of any actual help with repair or replacement.
After too much handling for testing, it looks like i have damaged the FPC cable inside the very top of the sensor housing; Now the UV and Rain sensors do not report with the other data.
Try to mount your unit so that there is no path for ants to get inside, but there are numerous openings in the unit, including the obviously necessary ones for air temperature, humidity, and pressure sensing.
I have a Tempest station and pretty much agree wi whatโs said in this article. But thereโs no mention bof how accurate the UV measurements are. My station tends to show a much different UV level than weather apps and internet sites that give local weather. But neither of those say Iโd theyโre showing โprojectedโ levels or โactual currentโ data