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Now, today, and the week
4,816 instruments still reporting in Minnesota, across 7 networks, each one with the kind of measurement it makes and how often it makes it. Open a place below to see which of them stand near it.
measured now363 instruments
Road weather towers
171 instruments/minutes
temp, pavement temp, wind, visibility, precip
Air temperature, pavement temperature, wind and visibility, placed where the road closes. The right instrument for a blowing-snow answer and almost nobody uses it well.
Airport surface observations
102 instruments/minutes
temp, wind, gust, visibility, precip, pressure
The backbone. Individual sensors fail and the station does not, so every reading is published with the age of the observation beside it.
Data-collection platforms
86 instruments/hourly
temp, wind, gust, humidity, pressure
Shore stations, fire weather stations and river gauges on one identifier. Most of them measure the river and are never offered here; the ones that are published air temperature and wind. A platform that was quiet when the catalogue was built is still listed, because it remains registered with its network. It is the only shoreline wind this service carries.
Climate reference stations
2 instruments/hourly
temp, humidity, wind, solar, precip
The national reference: triple sensors for temperature and precipitation, sited well away from buildings and paving, and kept to one standard across the country. The yardstick the other instruments are measured against.
Soil climate stations
2 instruments/hourly
temp, humidity, soil temp, soil moisture
Air and soil together: temperature and moisture measured in the ground at depth, hourly, mostly on farms and research land.
measured daily4,453 instruments
Volunteer precipitation and snow observers
4,292 instruments/once a day
precip, snowfall, snow depth
The same measurement a cooperative observer makes, from many more gardens. Minnesota publishes 4,292 of these against 161 cooperative observers, so on most days it is the densest picture of what is on the ground that exists.
Cooperative observers
161 instruments/once a day
snowfall, snow depth, precip, high, low
A person, a board and a ruler, in the morning. It cannot say what is falling right now and it is the best answer to how much is on the ground.
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Snow on the ground
22 places, each with its own forecast and its own instruments.