Weather Meters for Alpine Climbing

Haven't found any discussion on this. Does anyone use weather meters while climbing in the backcountry to try and predict weather changes? Headed to the bugaboos in a week and came across the Kestrel 3500 on the internet as a pocket sized weather meter. Wondering how useful it would be. 

Designed for shooting. With climbing all the elevation change with throw off your barometric readings. Also on cliff faces you can have conditions that are not valid a short distance away. 

If you are looking to use it for your own forecast from base camp it might be helpful, but a weather radio would probably work better.

For reading the weather for the next few hours while climbing I would pick up a book on how to read the sky. 

Someone recommended a few weather books to me years back.  I found them to be heavy and awkward to reference.  Plus, when I did get to a stance where they could be consulted, they almost always indicated that I should’ve turned back hours ago.  

After years of experience, that’s my alpine advice.  “Turn back hours ago”.  I’ve found it’s Pretty universal on any alpine climb worth doing.  

Use an inreach to pull a weather forecast, or even better, have a friend with internet access text you a weather forecast on your inreach. A mini weather meter like the Kestrel is great for current conditions, but as said above, not great for forecasting. Or at least, there isn’t a ton that the Kestrel will tell you that a watch with a barometer and your powers of observation won’t. 

Matt Zwrote:

Use an inreach to pull a weather forecast, or even better, have a friend with internet access text you a weather forecast on your inreach. A mini weather meter like the Kestrel is great for current conditions, but as said above, not great for forecasting. Or at least, there isn’t a ton that the Kestrel will tell you that a watch with a barometer and your powers of observation won’t. 

I have a watch with barometer and whenever climbing in the mountains it gives me storm alerts cause of altitude changes. Any advice for how to calibrate or set garmin watches for climbing?

FYI the hut Kain Hut hosts are usually amazing at keeping updated weather forecast print outs available.  Last season we got a print out every afternoon for the next few days.  They even shlep a print out up to Applebee several times a week.  I don't know if every hut host does this but we had them the entire 10+ days we were there.

Andy Shoemakerwrote:

FYI the hut Kain Hut hosts are usually amazing at keeping updated weather forecast print outs available.  Last season we got a print out every afternoon for the next few days.  They even shlep a print out up to Applebee several times a week.  I don't know if every hut host does this but we had them the entire 10+ days we were there.

That's what I did two years ago. Climb when the weather is good, on rest days/poor weather days check what is posted at the hut. Did they ever fix the electrical power, or does the custodian still fire up a small generator to check the weather/get updated guest lists? 

Many years ago, in the bugs, my friend had an earlier model kestrel. I was so happy when he lost it. get some basic  meteorologic skills like reading clouds etc… I could give zero fucks about whether the wind speed is 24 or 25 km/hr. 

Kestrel’s are great! If you’re interested in current fire weather and behavior possibilities….

I’d recommend learning a bit about clouds in general. Practically speaking the best advice I can give is to talk to a local about the daily weather. Find some crust old semi local in town (retired wildland firefighters are great for this) and ask them what to look for and expect.

I've used barometers in the past, and it's just a lot to stay on top of, and it's myopic because it's only one spot on the map.

I have a Kestrel 4500, or something like that, and it's great for windspeed, dewpoint, windchill, etc - and that stuff is really useful, because I find myself losing sight/feel of those things, and it's nice to be grounded by objective measure.  It also does data logging, which is fair spell better than graphing out trends using ice screws in the cave wall.  But, it carries additional weight/space.  Most often, the Kestrel doesn't go in my pack, it just doesn't make the cut, opting for the simplest keychain thermometer that's usually attached to my pack.

Today, for forecasts, it's the InReach.  Their weather forecasts are ok, maybe even pretty good, but not great.

To that end, I email a couple points of contact a .pdf and/or .xls file that has hyperlinks to the resources I, myself, would be using to make decisions, and my POCs can click on that, and relay pertinent info that might not be captured by the OEM InReach forecast.  Oh, and especially links to NASA FIRMS maps and other wildfire resources.

Joseph Shilatiwrote:

I have a watch with barometer and whenever climbing in the mountains it gives me storm alerts cause of altitude changes. Any advice for how to calibrate or set garmin watches for climbing?

If you have a barometer, you likely also have an altimeter. you can use your altimeter to get a sense of how atmospheric pressure is changing. Dropping pressure can indicate bad weather; higher pressure can indicate more stable weather. On an altimeter, dropping pressure means your altitude goes up. 

Calibrate your altimeter when get to a spot with a known elevation: usually lakes and summits have marked elevations on topo maps, and other points (trailheads, junctions, passes, stream crossings) can be inferred from the contour lines. If your altimeter shows you being higher than the map does, that could be a sign that the pressure has dropped since your previous calibration.

If you wear your watch around town, note how the pressure changes express themselves in your altitude (which presumably doesn't change as you sit at your desk all day) and map onto changes in the weather. This will help you interpret the readings in the mountains.