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What is measuring in South Dakota

1,321 instruments still reporting in South Dakota, 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 now257 instruments

Road weather towers

174 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.

Data-collection platforms

47 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.

Airport surface observations

31 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.

Climate reference stations

4 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

1 instrument/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 daily1,064 instruments

Volunteer precipitation and snow observers

928 instruments/once a day

precip, snowfall, snow depth

The same measurement a cooperative observer makes, from many more gardens. South Dakota publishes 928 of these against 136 cooperative observers, so on most days it is the densest picture of what is on the ground that exists.

Cooperative observers

136 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.

Every place in South Dakota

24 places, each with its own forecast and its own instruments.