Sources of weather and climate data
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Do you know of someone who is deaf or hard of hearing? It can be difficult to get severe weather information if you cannot listen to a NOAA weather radio or hear a siren. The National Weather Service has a web page devoted to communicating severe weather information to those who have trouble hearing audio…
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The Climate Toolbox is an online source of climate information from a consortium of agencies in the Northwest. However, a number of their tools are available for the entire lower 48 states. You can view historical data for many different climate variables, including degree days, chill portions, evapotranspiration, and streaks of days below certain threshold…
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In our Drought Monitor Forum this week, we are being reminded of the variety of tools that are available to help monitor drought conditions across your region. You can find a list of many of these tools, including the Historical Drought Atlas, soil moisture maps, and vegetation drought response index, on the Drought Monitor site…
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Are you frustrated that the Drought Monitor is not accurately reflecting dry conditions in your area? It may be that they do not have any data there other than radar-based rainfall. Reports from “on the ground” can be invaluable for drawing the correct drought lines. Here is a new mobile-friendly site for reporting drought conditions…
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I get asked from time to time what weather apps I use on my smartphone. Let me say at the outset that I am a minimal smartphone user, so I am probably not the person to ask about this. But I do have a couple of apps on my phone so I can check the…
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Summer rainfall can be highly variable in space and time. You’ve probably all seen a shaft of rain covering part of your town while bypassing other areas, or compared rainfall amounts with neighbors and found quite a difference from your own. If you are monitoring a county for rainfall amounts or have fields scattered over…
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Just in time for the latest heat way, the Midwestern Regional Climate Center announced a new interactive heat index map for the US which shows the average number of hours with the heat index above several thresholds. This is available for the first order weather stations at the larger airports. You can view it at…