Not all weather data sources are the same, but many of them look similar when you’re checking the latest weather online or watching the evening news.  Depending on what type of equipment is at your favorite weather station, you could be getting data from 5 minutes ago, or only what happened yesterday.

The National Weather Service’s Cooperative Network is a long-running nationwide network.  This group of over 10,000 volunteer observers has been taking notes on daily maximum and minimum temperature, total precipitation (rain and snow), and even evaporation data.  This network has been in existence for over 100 years collecting data that has become the foundation of U.S. climate measurements.  The Cooperative Network remains the nation’s only official climate data source for temperature and precipitation, and remains the industry standard for quality climate observations.

With the advent of reliable automated equipment, as compared to the manual observations taken by the Cooperative Network, most airports and some other government operated locations have converted to this method.  It requires fewer man hours to maintain and operate the station under good conditions.  Many of today’s airports take hourly observations, and will post them online or through various data feeds to your news station or National Weather Service office.  Typically these automated weather stations will measure temperature, liquid precipitation (rain), wind speed and direction, humidity and pressure.  Even though these measurements are taken primarily to support aviation at airports, they are of high enough quality for secondary use as a credible climate data source.

The State Climate Office at SDSU has real-time updates of weather conditions around the state, with more equipment ready to be installed later this year.  Check out their website for the latest reports, updated every five minutes.  In most cases, you can access temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction, humidity and solar radiation from more than 40 stations.

Finally, for many of us it may be of interest (or even fun) to install our own weather stations at our home, farm or ranch, to get the current on-field conditions.  Many vendors sell consumer-grade equipment for automated measurements that can be transmitted through websites and onto your mobile device. 

There are many more types of equipment and networks out there, as this is just a sampling of types of data available across South Dakota.  Whether you are looking at long-term trends in climate at your farm, or need the latest temperature or precipitation totals from the last hour, there is a weather data source out there for you.