The Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network: Experiences with the development of a state-wide automated weather station network for Georgia

The Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network (AEMN) was established in 1991. The network has grown from four stations in 1991 to 60 stations in 2004. The original goal of the network was to collect detailed weather data for agricultural and environmental applications, including not only research and extension, but also producers. The AEMN is based on the Campbell Scientific CR10 and CR10X data loggers. Variables that are being measured include air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, soil temperature, soil moisture and barometric pressure. The sensors are scanned at a one-second frequency and summarized every 15 minutes. The data are transmitted via dedicated telephone lines to a central computer, where they are processed and pushed to a web server. Via the web site www.Georgiaweather.net users can retrieve near real-time or current weather conditions, as well as yesterday's data and various other weather data summaries. Several interactive applications have been developed for calculating chilling hours, degree-days, heating and cooling degree-days as well as some simple models for predicting temperature and crop yield. The number of page views and users continues to increase and reached 230,000 page views in January, 2005.