Weather Station
Every day, rain or shine, the Grounds Department weather station,
located near the Environmental Safety Facility, telephones a weather
report to the Grounds Department office at Bonair Siding. This weather
station is a component of the Department's irrigation central control
system. The weather data is processed by the central computer, a
PC in the Grounds Office, which calculates sprinkler run times based
on the daily ET (Evapotranspiration). The central computer then
communicates the newly calculated irrigation schedules to the field
controllers.
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Weather station sends data to PC in Grounds Office daily
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PC automatically computes water needs based on daily weather
data.
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PC sends revised schedules to field controllers and automatically
runs the sprinklers.
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Evapotranspiration is a measure of water lost both by evaporation
from the soil and by transpiration from plant tissues, and provides
a good indication of how much water needs to be applied by irrigation
when rainfall is insufficient. Measured in inches per day, ET is
calculated based on temperature, solar radiation, rainfall, humidity
and wind measurements reported from the weather station. The daily
reports from the weather station enable daily adjustment of schedules
in all the system controllers, something that would not be possible
manually. This can result in significant water savings; for example,
a 1996 study of the Oval Lawn indicated that use of Maxicom with
ET based scheduling resulted in a 27% water savings.
In addition to irrigation scheduling, we use weather station data
for other applications. We calculate degree days for use in our
IPM programs, and we compute Chill
Hours each year for use in plant selection.
You can see the daily weather station data for March 2005 in the
following table.
| Date |
Minimum Temperature |
Maximum Temperature |
Total Solar Radiation |
Total Rainfall |
Average Humidity |
Average Wind Run |
Daily Evapotrans-piration |
| 3/1/2005 |
42.93 |
64.38 |
324.71 |
0.00 |
77.46 |
1.28 |
0.08 |
| 3/2/2005 |
44.47 |
63.55 |
389.82 |
0.33 |
80.10 |
1.39 |
0.09 |
| 3/3/2005 |
40.22 |
67.39 |
385.38 |
0.00 |
78.44 |
1.00 |
0.09 |
| 3/4/2005 |
51.44 |
65.57 |
112.75 |
0.71 |
89.66 |
1.29 |
0.04 |
| 3/5/2005 |
42.81 |
70.32 |
395.96 |
0.00 |
83.37 |
1.07 |
0.09 |
| 3/6/2005 |
43.17 |
72.57 |
444.62 |
0.00 |
76.55 |
0.82 |
0.11 |
| 3/7/2005 |
32.00 |
73.42 |
73.66 |
0.00 |
81.03 |
0.64 |
0.11 |
| 3/8/2005 |
45.55 |
73.04 |
321.87 |
0.00 |
84.39 |
0.79 |
0.08 |
| 3/9/2005 |
46.87 |
74.66 |
373.08 |
0.00 |
84.83 |
0.59 |
0.09 |
| 3/10/2005 |
48.97 |
79.77 |
454.81 |
0.00 |
68.99 |
0.91 |
0.13 |
| 3/11/2005 |
51.22 |
86.07 |
464.05 |
0.00 |
58.43 |
0.99 |
0.16 |
| 3/12/2005 |
49.86 |
86.97 |
197.78 |
0.00 |
76.82 |
0.49 |
0.09 |
| 3/13/2005 |
54.73 |
68.04 |
350.83 |
0.00 |
78.74 |
1.36 |
0.10 |
| 3/14/2005 |
41.48 |
71.28 |
480.01 |
0.00 |
67.20 |
1.66 |
0.13 |
| 3/15/2005 |
38.86 |
73.99 |
498.48 |
0.00 |
48.40 |
1.02 |
0.15 |
| 3/16/2005 |
38.38 |
73.99 |
461.05 |
0.00 |
60.66 |
1.08 |
0.13 |
| 3/17/2005 |
45.30 |
69.24 |
257.83 |
0.00 |
57.63 |
0.73 |
0.09 |
| 3/18/2005 |
50.02 |
62.15 |
124.12 |
0.23 |
72.84 |
0.79 |
0.06 |
| 3/19/2005 |
53.19 |
63.73 |
223.47 |
0.23 |
87.39 |
1.29 |
0.06 |
| 3/20/2005 |
53.62 |
62.20 |
228.05 |
0.20 |
76.65 |
1.93 |
0.07 |
| 3/21/2005 |
47.05 |
62.83 |
239.77 |
0.03 |
79.71 |
0.94 |
0.07 |
| 3/22/2005 |
50.02 |
58.42 |
77.11 |
0.83 |
88.62 |
1.40 |
0.04 |
| 3/23/2005 |
48.18 |
57.29 |
234.97 |
0.31 |
85.35 |
1.96 |
0.06 |
| 3/24/2005 |
44.29 |
60.64 |
320.39 |
0.04 |
74.55 |
0.94 |
0.08 |
| 3/25/2005 |
37.72 |
61.32 |
524.63 |
0.00 |
72.37 |
1.95 |
0.12 |
| 3/26/2005 |
40.46 |
67.41 |
420.08 |
0.00 |
73.36 |
0.99 |
0.11 |
| 3/27/2005 |
43.76 |
66.40 |
324.45 |
0.00 |
74.97 |
1.13 |
0.09 |
| 3/28/2005 |
48.06 |
60.53 |
391.97 |
0.77 |
83.44 |
2.62 |
0.10 |
| 3/29/2005 |
45.79 |
60.93 |
403.05 |
0.08 |
78.37 |
2.76 |
0.10 |
| 3/30/2005 |
39.77 |
66.22 |
572.95 |
0.00 |
68.39 |
2.13 |
0.14 |
| 3/31/2005 |
40.60 |
73.83 |
580.21 |
0.00 |
59.87 |
0.97 |
0.16 |
View Weather Table Archive for
2001
View Weather Table Archive
for 2002
View Weather Table Archive
for 2003
View Weather Table Archive
for 2004
View Weather Table
Archive for 2005 (January - March)
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