The choice of the WX-200 as a weather station was primarily because of its low cost. It was put in operation in 1997 and for two years its data was available only sporadically, mostly as monthly reports. In July 1999 it began publishing its data on the Internet live and full time.
The reason for its existence is because Fortuna's weather, widely available on the Internet as well as the Weather Channel, is measured at an airport an hour's drive north, situated on a much cooler and often foggy Pacific shore. Because Fortuna is sheltered from the cold Pacific winds it may be ten or fifteen degrees warmer.

The station.
The wooden weather shelter seen below is next to the asparagus bed and contains the temperature and humidity sensors, a mechanical high/low thermometer and a thermometer with a soil probe. The rain gauge is mounted on the top of the shelter.
A steel pipe with a very heavy chunk of concrete on one end (a parking meter post for twenty years) was recycled to neatly hold up the aluminum anemometer mast, which weighs all of nine pounds including the wind sensors.
One hundred and twenty feet of Cat5 cable inside buried PVC pipe connects everything to the Springville Networks weather computer. When your browser requests information, the sensors and database records are queried and a page is put together and sent on its way to your screen, all done at the speed of light.
The system is quite sensitive - on a cool day, placing your hand inside the shelter for just a few seconds will put a quarter-degree wobble on the temperature graphs.