ArgiMet: Reclamation's Automated Weather Network in the Pacific Northwest
Location
Eccles Conference Center
Event Website
http://water.usu.edu/
Start Date
4-2-2009 8:00 AM
End Date
4-2-2009 8:20 AM
Description
Competition for limited water resources in the western United States continues to increase. In most western states, irrigated agriculture is the largest single consumer of water, so irrigation water management improvements can lead to considerable water savings. To this end, the Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration partnered to create a network of automated agricultural weather stations - called "AgriMet" - in the Pacific Northwest. These stations collect and telemeter the meteorological parameters required to model crop evapotranspiration (ET). The information is used by irrigation districts, farmers, resource conservation agencies, and agricultural consultants for irrigation scheduling and related purposes. The network started with three stations in 1983, but has since grown to over 60 stations in Reclamation's Pacific Northwest region, 21 stations in the Great Plains Region in western Montana, and seven stations in the Mid Pacific region. These automated weather stations transmit their data hourly by the GOES satellite, and the information is used in the Kimberly-Penman 1982 evapotranspiration model to compute reference ET at each station. Weather parameters collected at each station include solar radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and precipitation. Many stations have special sensors, such as soil temperature, leaf wetness, barometric pressure, and crop canopy temperature. The weather observations are updated to Reclamation's AgriMet website (http://www.usbr.gov/pn/agrimet) every hour immediately after transmission. Numerous automated and manual quality control processes insure a reliable, quality controlled meteorological data base for a variety of applications, ranging from short term weather forecast verification to climate analysis.
ArgiMet: Reclamation's Automated Weather Network in the Pacific Northwest
Eccles Conference Center
Competition for limited water resources in the western United States continues to increase. In most western states, irrigated agriculture is the largest single consumer of water, so irrigation water management improvements can lead to considerable water savings. To this end, the Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration partnered to create a network of automated agricultural weather stations - called "AgriMet" - in the Pacific Northwest. These stations collect and telemeter the meteorological parameters required to model crop evapotranspiration (ET). The information is used by irrigation districts, farmers, resource conservation agencies, and agricultural consultants for irrigation scheduling and related purposes. The network started with three stations in 1983, but has since grown to over 60 stations in Reclamation's Pacific Northwest region, 21 stations in the Great Plains Region in western Montana, and seven stations in the Mid Pacific region. These automated weather stations transmit their data hourly by the GOES satellite, and the information is used in the Kimberly-Penman 1982 evapotranspiration model to compute reference ET at each station. Weather parameters collected at each station include solar radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and precipitation. Many stations have special sensors, such as soil temperature, leaf wetness, barometric pressure, and crop canopy temperature. The weather observations are updated to Reclamation's AgriMet website (http://www.usbr.gov/pn/agrimet) every hour immediately after transmission. Numerous automated and manual quality control processes insure a reliable, quality controlled meteorological data base for a variety of applications, ranging from short term weather forecast verification to climate analysis.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/runoff/2009/AllAbstracts/22