Kansas Mesonet: Helpful Tool for Farm and Livestock Management and Beyond
By Pat Burt – Wild West District Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent
If you have not discovered the Kansas Mesonet website, you may be missing out on some valuable information. The website does not just contain current, and historical weather information, but also contains other environmental information that is very helpful to farmers, livestock producers, gardeners, businesses and industry, and any others interested in the weather and related data.
To get an idea of what information you have access to, follow the link to the Kansas Mesonet homepage: https://mesonet.k-state.edu/ . There is a map with all 105 counties outlined. In most of the counties, you will see a number. The numbers represent the location of Kansas Mesonet weather stations. By clicking on a number, you will get data associated with that weather station location and it will appear to the left of the Kansas county map. Just above the map are three tiles and by clicking on these tiles, you can see the temperature, 24-hour precipitation, and the wind speed for the weather station’s location.
The three horizontal lines on to the left of “Kansas Mesonet” when clicked will provide you with more information on many different topics, including: soil moisture, soil temperature, degree days, inversion, and animal comfort.
I invite you to look around the site and find information that is of interest to you. At this time, there is not an app for Kansas Mesonet but hopefully, it will be something available in the future.
