New, improved weather Web site debuts Oct. 15

The Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN) has overhauled its Web site to make things easier for farmers looking for weather data to protect their crops.

The improved site — which debuts Monday, Oct. 15 —has a new user interface, database and web and data servers. The site features a more modern look, streamlined navigation, gives access to additional resources and its database is more efficient.

The servers are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by University of Florida personnel at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

UF officials unveiled the original site in 1998, filling a gap left by the National Weather Service when it discontinued special agriculture forecasts in 1996.

FAWN uses 33 solar-powered stations around the state to collect weather data and transmit it to a computer in Gainesville every 15 minutes. The stations measure air temperatures at two, six and 30 feet above the ground, soil temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, relative humidity, barometric pressure, leaf wetness and solar radiation.

The site is used mostly by the agriculture community, using its weather data to aid decisions about cold protection, irrigation and disease control. Other users include emergency management officials, who use the data to see how far south freezing temperatures have gone as well as wind speeds during hurricane season. Forestry officials also use the data to tell how far smoke plumes may travel during forest fires or controlled burns.

Find the site at http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu

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