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Weather station installed at Lake Miola PDF Print E-mail
News - Community News
Written by Brian McCauley   
Wednesday, 17 December 2008 08:00
Miami County farmers and residents soon may be able to know everything they want about the local weather, and then some, thanks to a new station installed last week at Lake Miola.

Kansas climatologist Mary Knapp and research technologist Fred Caldwell, both from Kansas State University, spent Friday securing the tower on its perch atop a hill overlooking Lake Miola and making sure all of the instruments are functioning properly. 

The weather station is one of 14 that have been installed in the past couple months throughout the state, focusing on the north central and east central portions of Kansas, where there are gaps in weather data collection, Knapp said.

The project is being organized by the Kansas Water Office, but several other agencies are taking part, including the United States Department of Agriculture and Kansas Department of Transportation among others, Knapp said.

Each entity has its own reasons for wanting to utilize the data that the station collects, including the city of Paola, which is allowing the station to be placed on city land. Much of the information soon will be shown on the city’s Web site.

Knapp said the station’s instruments will track a number of things, including temperature, rain fall, relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed at six feet and 30 feet, which is the top of the tower.

The data can have several practical uses, such as telling companies looking to install pipeline at what depth the ground will freeze.

The location is a safe distance away from any man-made structures and is in a fairly open area without large trees or other windbreaks. Knapp said it is the perfect place to track weather in its natural environment.
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