SkyBox Survives It's First Storm!
SkyBox vs Storm Goretti
On the morning of 08/01/2026, the Met Office issued multiple weather warnings across the UK for Storm Goretti.
The very shoddy image below shows the one-and-only SkyBox weather station perched outside my house on a window ledge. As you can see, it’s not exactly a professionally engineered, weatherproof instrument.
SkyBox is built from:
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An old Chinese takeaway container acting as the main housing for the ESP32, Wi-Fi antenna, and breadboard
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A small children’s paint container mounted on top, housing the two sensors that collect temperature, humidity, and pressure
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A drinks bottle lid serving as a makeshift roof
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Blu Tack used generously as “waterproofing”
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A large silica gel bag inside to reduce moisture buildup
By any reasonable standard, it should not survive serious weather.
Storm Performance
Despite torrential rain and gale-force winds, SkyBox continued to:
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Collect data
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Transmit readings reliably
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Feed live information into the website
All of this happened throughout the peak of Storm Goretti.
This data is vital for improving our weather model especially for snow forecasting, which the model currently:
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Doesn’t even know snow exists
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Can’t yet identify the atmospheric signals that indicate snowfall is likely
Storm events like this give us the extreme-condition data we need to improve accuracy going forward.
Post-Storm Inspection
After the storm passed, I opened the housing expecting the worst.
Surprisingly:
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Minimal water ingress
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No obvious sensor damage
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No communication failures
Considering how badly it was being pummelled by rain, this was genuinely unexpected.
Final Thoughts
Rudimentary. Improvised. Slightly ridiculous.
Yet somehow, SkyBox held its own against a storm.
Wishing you the best, SkyBox.
