Backpacking

Kestrel 3000 Pocket Weather Meter

Pocket weather station

A marvel of compact engineering, this brilliant little device now accompanies me wherever I travel, not just in the wild any more. Two buttons. One is on/off. The other cycles the readout through current wind speed, maximum wind speed, average wind speed, temperature, wind chill, relative humidity, heat index, and dew point. It is shockingly sensitive. Once when I was hiking up into a fog layer, I tracked–while I was walking–the decrease in temperature and rise in humidity, with indicated dew point ever closer to the ambient temperature. As I entered the fog, humidity reached 100 percent and the ambient temperature and dew point temperatures were identical. Precisely! Pocket-small, the Kestrel’s slide-on case can’t be lost because it’s on the lanyard.

-- Stewart Brand 06/22/04

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