Brrrr. The National Weather Service says to expect hazardous weather through the weekend on both the Westside and the Eastside of Washington state.
Helping to monitor some of that activity will be remote weather stations on state trust land. DNR maintains dozens of Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) — part of a network of more than 2,000 strategically located throughout the United States. These stations — owned by various federal, state and local government agencies — monitor the weather continuously.
RAWS are especially helpful during our state’s six-month fire seasons. They help DNR and other agencies monitor wildfire fire conditions. The information — along with U.S. Weather Service data — helps us predict fire behavior and rate fire dangers. Our resource managers can use RAWS data to determine the best conditions for planting and maintaining the millions of trees we plant on state trust lands.
How does a RAWS work? A unit collects, stores, and transmits data to a computer system, such as the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, via the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Data are automatically forwarded to several other computer systems including the Weather Information Management System (WIMS) and the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nevada.
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