Meteorologist Bob Grossman prepares connection to soil temperature and moisture instruments.
Thanks to a team of agency staff and citizen volunteers, there's now a new weather station in Gunnison sage-grouse habitat. The team installed the station in Dry Creek Basin, south of Naturita, Colorado. To see the local weather conditions click here. Click here for the Weather Underground station which shows radar. Note: on WU, they're using our soil temperature info and listing it as the air temperature. We're working with WU to get this fixed.
The data it provides will help land and wildlife managers:
- See how grouse populations fluctuate compared to local weather conditions over time.
- Make correlations between the success of habitat improvement projects and weather.
- See how the local climate changes and how that affects habitat for grouse and other wildlife.
A big "Thank you!" to meteorologist Bob Grossman for his advice and help in setting up the station and making the data accessible. I also appreciated the help of Evan Phillips, Murphy Jacox, Creighton Wood and Dave Schneck in setting up the station. Finally, thanks to Onset, makers of the HOBO data logger, for donating some equipment to the San Miguel Basin Gunnison Sage-grouse Working Group! - Leigh Robertson
"In my mind weather stations are one of the best monitoring investments that can be made. Like a good wine, the older it gets the more valuable the data it's collecting becomes." - Doug Ouren, U.S. Geological Survey