Kestrel 4500 Pocket Weather Meter - Yellow

I love the Kestrel 4500 I bought here on Amazon.com. As a fan of meteorology, I find comparing the data at home to that of the local forecast quite entertaining. The device is rather intuitive, and easy to use.My one complaint is that the manual is not especially thorough in some areas. One example; there is a screen where you can calibrate the relative humidity. Unfortunately, the manual is silent on this. (It is clear about calibrating the compass, however). As it turns out, there is really not much need to calibrate relative humidity, which is fortuitous, since you need to buy a $100 kit to do so! (I discovered this through an internet search) I imagine after a number of years, the drift may become significant enough to desire to recal, but I am not going to sweat that until I see a significant variation in expected readings compared to forecast.If you enjoy taking local weather readings, or have a hobby that needs such data (ballistics, for example) this is the tool for you!

I am a California firefighter who depends on weather for determine fire conditions particularly fire behavior. Weather particularly wind is the most variable weather factor. Hence, the Kestrel 4500 is great. I have also a Kestrel 3000. It, too, is great but more limited.As a fire chief, I don't use the instrument as much as I would like but I had one problem with battery corrosion. Was not Kestrel's fault! But, with that battery corrosion is not covered by the Kestrel warranty. I suspect the battery corrosion that led to the demise of the original Kestrel 4500 was due to: (1) crappy, cheap batteries and (2) my failure to remove the batteries or check the instrument for about a 6 month period. My bad in both cases. Well, Kestrel made it right with a replacement Kestrel 4500 instrument.So, I am a big fan and a learned fan... Thank you.