Zambretti Forecaster

An old “forecaster” is this Spanish monk:

http://www.surnames.org/aladin/frare.html

It is made with intestine fiber that reacts to humidity and (it is said) to pressure variations.

This monk in original version is rather inaccurate and unusable, but I did modify and adapt the Zambretti algorithm, plus some other data such as temperature, humidity and the boltek sensor, and made it work this way - sorry it is in Catalan:

http://frater.casacota.cat

Here’s another disc type weather forecaster, the Sager Weathercaster. Pic below courtesy of Brooke Clarke, more details (and a lot of other interesting stuff) on his weather page.


I just found a Sager Weathercaster for sale on eBay for $9.99 (compared to $49 and $125 that others want for them). Don’t look for one at $9.99 now though…it’s sold…to me :wink:

Well, that’s a deal, the best I saw was $35 on Alibris which exceeded the value of my curiosity :lol:

Thanks for bringing these back to my attention. I had forgotten all about them. Are you going to give us a forcast comparison when it arrives. :slight_smile:

and who will start with an electronic version? I like to help.

regards,

gerard

My wife is addicted to yard sales and thrift stores. She has a standing order from me to buy anything related to weather that costs a few bucks or so. Today when I got home she said she found a weather book that had a marked price of $1.50 and it was 1/2 price day. It turned out to be a Sager Weathercaster, in it’s original box and appears almost new except you can tell the paper is old. :smiley:

Did a quick forecast and it compared pretty close to WXSIM. Both are calling for rain and winds from the North - Northeast. The biggest difference being it’s calling for strong winds (25-38 mph) while WXSIM is calling for around 11 mph.

–Dave

That’s a stroke of luck and quite a coincidence too 8O

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Maybe I’ll play the forecast numbers for the Lotto. She said it was with a bunch of old books in one box. Not long ago she found one of the Weather Channel or USA books and a very nice lab type thermometer. I had to stop her from bringing home remote temp sensors but I am hoping for a VP2 next. :slight_smile:

–Dave

Has it arrived yet ? :slight_smile:

I bought one for $ 30 and it arrived in the Netherlands. Interesting how somebody made this and to be honest it works great. I was thinking about some WD tags, so we can make it working with WD.

but for this moment no time for this project.

regards,

gerard

It has. I tried it when it arrived but as we were in very stable conditions at the time forecasting was a bit boring/easy. I’ll dig it out and have another try now that things are changing.

The stable conditions finished here yesterday when a front moved across, blasted the trees for 20 minutes, and good to see some rain at last. But would have preferred to have the rain spread across a few hours. 8O

I am going to get a Zambretti Forcaster just for fun. I will keep a look out for a Sager.

doornenburgweer glad to see you are having fun with yours. Good to get away from a computer screen occasionally.

I just bought a 1954 Guest Weathercaster on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280133861265

It looks to be about the same as the Sager Weathercaster.

Steve

Here is an original one, in silver, from 1927, on eBay, while the listing is still accessible:

NEGRETTI & ZAMBRA SILVER Pocket Forecaster BAROMETER
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310049039281

Steve

Thanks! I’ll try…

Finally I could not buy it… too expensive.

But I did make a script to make appear the Zambretti Forecast as icon in WDL:

http://wx.casacota.cat

Finally I could buy one on EBay. I have now enhanced the script to move the disks and have a virtual one that works automatically, here is the alpha version:

That looks real nice

Have you seen this one, http://www.northantsweather.com/weather/sager/sager.htm
This is different to the other script going around, Naish666 who wrote it is meant to be
also modifying it so it will pull the data fro his weather software and when hes done that
he will be modifying it to pull the data from the clientraw and then automatically produce
the forecast, hopefully, i aint heard anything from him for a good while now, must be busy :slight_smile: