ARS News
January 30, 2018
Groundwater level instruments were installed at the following FCREW stations during the Summer of 2015: F101, F103, F106, F109, F110, and F114. Graphical data for these stations are available on the meteograms page. For more details, contact Daniel Moriasi at Daniel.Moriasi@ARS.USDA.GOV.
May 23, 2013
The ARS Micronet website no longer requires the use of the WeatherScope plugin.
January 9, 2012
The Fort Cobb and Little Washita Micronet sites now record soil temperature and soil moisture data at 5-min resolution. Effective January 1st, all data files will reflect the higher resolution data.
January 11, 2011
During the period December 2010 through January 2011, nine of the Little Washita Micronet stations were moved to improve access. The sites affected include:
- A134 (moved 0.64 miles south and renamed A234 on January 8, 2011)
- A135 (moved 0.47 miles north and renamed A235 on January 7, 2011)
- A144 (moved 1.29 miles south-southeast and renamed A244 on December 11, 2010)
- A149 (moved 0.48 miles south and renamed A249 on January 6, 2011)
- A150 (moved 0.06 miles south and renamed A250 on December 8, 2010)
- A153 (moved 0.24 miles north and renamed A253 on December 9, 2010)
- A156 (moved 0.37 miles southwest and renamed A256 on December 11, 2010)
- A162 (moved 1.08 miles southeast and renamed A262 on January 4, 2011)
- A182 (moved 0.03 miles west and renamed A282 on January 5, 2011)
January 1, 2011
Quality assurance flags for pre-1997 air temperature data from the Little Washita Micronet will soon be updated. The way we sampled the temperature/relative humidity sensors caused a residual voltage that impacted the temperature measurements. The residual voltage generally made the temperature readings a few tenths of a degree too warm. Sometimes the error was as great as 1.5 C, while other times it was a cool bias of up to 0.5 C. This problem was unknown to the engineering and scientific community at the time. We downloaded new logger programs in March of 1997 to remedy the error. The manuscript An Unusual Oklahoma Mesonet Temperature Sensor Problem provides more details.
Errors of a degree or so won’t necessarily impact many of our users and products but we’re concerned that someone doing detailed climate work will be confused by the early temperature data. In retrospect, we have a new perspective on what “climate quality” data means, and we have decided to flag those early temperature observations as erroneous. Over the next few months, we will be updating the data files with the new data quality flags.
March 25, 2009
During the period December 2008 through March 2009, the following instruments were removed from the ARS Micronets: air temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation. In addition, the soil temperature measurements transitioned from being measured by a stand-alone thermistor to being derived from the soil moisture sensor. Thus, the soil temperature depths changed from 5-, 10-, 15-, and 30-cm to 5-, 25-, and 45-cm. Historic data from the original sensors can still be downloaded via the interactive data request form.