Eight new stations added to the Enviroweather network

The new stations are situated in important areas for fruit, vegetable and row crop production in west central Michigan.

New Enviroweather station
New Enviroweather station at Alpine/Comstock Park, Michigan. Photo by MSU Enviroweather.

Michigan State University Enviroweather has added eight new weather stations in the west central region thanks to funding obtained with a Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Specialty Crop Block Grant through the Michigan Tree Fruit Commission. These recent additions bring the total number of weather stations in the Enviroweather network to 96.

The new stations are situated in important areas for fruit, vegetable and row crop production in west central Michigan, and includes three sites in Oceana County and five along the Fruit Ridge northwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The stations are hosted by fruit and vegetable growers, and station sites were chosen to be representative of the landscape of the surrounding locality. Site names and grower hosts are listed in the table below, and the locations are shown in the map below.  

Locations and hosts of new Enviroweather stations. All stations are named for the nearest municipality.

Station

County

Host

Aetna / Fremont

Newaygo

Kropscot Farm Environmental Center

Alpine Township / Comstock Park

Kent

Thome Orchards

Conklin / Wright

Ottawa

Dietrich Orchards - Riveridge Produce

Reeman / Fremont-West

Newaygo

Roossinck Fruit Storage and Orchards

Sparta-North

Kent

Goodfellow Orchards

New Era

Oceana

Lewis Farms

Mears

Oceana

Riley Orchards

Shelby-East

Oceana

American Asparagus and Apple Packing

Map of new stations
Map of station locations. Dark circles with labels indicate newly added stations. Light green circles indicate locations of other stations in the region. Red stippling shows areas of tree fruit production.

These stations were installed and connected to the Enviroweather network between December 2018 and May 2019. As some of these stations were installed when the ground was frozen, soil sensors for temperature and moisture still need to be installed at some sites. Nevertheless, these stations are online and are recording air temperature, relative humidity, leaf wetness, solar radiation, wind speed and wind direction, and these data are available to run important early-season crop, pest management and general weather models on Enviroweather.

Many thanks and much appreciation go to the Tree Fruit Commission and our cooperating growers for their work on obtaining the funding and providing sites to make these new stations a reality. Enviroweather sincerely appreciates the continuing support of the Michigan agricultural commodity groups and all of our users.

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