Viewing Barometric Readings for Outdoor Activities

ocular20 said:

Is there a way to view barometric pressure recorded by the watch in GC (and ideally associate that with an activity)?

No there is not, because when you are in an activity, the pressure sensor is locked in the altimeter mode. It means any pressure change is considered to be caused by a change of the altitude, not due to a barometric change. There is no way for the pressure sensor to distinguish the origin of the pressure change. Even with the continuous GPS auto-calibration (and only some models have it) it is not really possible, because the accuracy is very limited (tens of meters), and it happens in a relatively long intervals.

Hmm interesting, I did not know that. If that's the case, then what's the point of setting the barometric altimeter mode (e.g. auto vs. altimeter only vs. barometer only)? I'd think that the vast majority of the time, you'd care about elevation while recording an activity.

Also I could see use for barometer only mode in an activity. For instance, during an interval workout on a track, you wouldn't want changing weather conditions to record as hill climbs/descents (which would then mess up things like running power).

ocular20 said:

I'd think that the vast majority of the time, you'd care about elevation while recording an activity.

Exactly. That's why I wrote that during an activity, the sensor is locked into the altimeter mode.

ocular20 said:

For instance, during an interval workout on a track, you wouldn't want changing weather conditions to record as hill climbs/descents (which would then mess up things like running power).

I agree. There are certainly some exceptions, like swimming, track run, and others, where locking the altimeter mode makes no sense. At swimming, the problem is that you cannot read the atmospheric pressure when the watch is submerged, and when it is above water, also not reliably, due to the water in the sensor port. I did not test the track run activity, so cannot tell which mode is used. 

Of course, you can also override the default auto mode, and set the watch into the manual baro mode instead. In such case you can use a Connect IQ data field app plotting the barometric pressure and saving it with the activity data to Garmin Connect. However, you'll have both the barometric and elevation triggered pressure changes aggregated in the same graph. The elevation graph will be flat.