Texas A&M University-Commerce purchased a weather station earlier this summer in order to improve the way weather in Commerce is recorded and analyzed.
Heading the acquirement of the new weather station is Dr. Haydn Fox of the Biology Department. The station, which has been working since Aug. 10, has helped in aiding the more accurate reporting of the weather conditions for the radio station on campus, 88.9 KETR and the Agriculture Department in a study of rooftop gardens.
The weather station was obtained from Davis Instruments in Hayward, Calif. The company specializes in the manufacturing of instruments for weather, marine and automotive use according to the company’s Web site.
The weather station was linked through software that transmits information from the roof of the Science Building to Fox’s office and onto a school Web site. The site, www.tamu-commerce.edu/biology/weather/, displays the temperature, rainfall amounts, wind velocity, wind direction, UV index and relative humidity.
Fox praised the weather station and other modern weather readers for helping the advance knowledge of the weather. He has incorporated the new device in one of his classes, where he has students record and map out weather patterns that can be used for forecasting.
Costing $1,200, Fox called the station, “surprisingly cheap.”
The campus radio station, 88.9 KETR is also reaping the benefits of the new weather station.
“It’s definitely a blessing for us to once again accurately report the wind and rainfall amounts,” Mark Chapman of KETR said.
Marcus Lane, a disc jockey for the radio station, uses the Web to report the weather conditions in the Commerce area.
For the first time since the original rain gauge on the roof of the Performing Arts Center was tarred over, the radio station knows the exact rainfall amount.
“It would have been nice to have had it [the weather station] years ago,” Dr. Derald Harp, an assistant professor in the Agriculture Department, said.
Harp, an expert in horticulture, is using the station to help in his study of the effects on energy usage of buildings with rooftop gardens. This study is part of research being conducted in Dallas and at Texas A&M University-College Station.
“It’s really nice to have something like this actually in Commerce — before the nearest temperature readings came from Greenville,” Harp said.