Weather & Climate

Crooked Creek Reserve in recent past winters.

Live weather conditions and data for:

Climate

For a more detailed discussion of WMRC climate monitoring please go to WMRC Weather and Climate Monitoring Project

Other Stations of Interest

Bishop airport weather conditions and data

TREX Transect near Independence

Forecasts

Locator tool for finding weather stations and data (California Department of Water Resources) This site can be used to locate the dozens of stations in the Owens valley and in the Eastern Sierra, and to retrieve data as far back as 1902.

Conditions on Niwot Ridge, Rocky Mountains, Colorado and Mt. Washington, New Hampshire

Historical Background to WMRC Weather and Climate Monitoring

Some of this info may be out-of-date, but are leaving it posted here for archival purposes as we prepare for updates.

WMRC collects, archives, serves and links to weather/climate data for for over 65 weather stations and weather data loggers in the White Mountains and surrounding areas. Measurements include air temperature and relative humidity, solar radiation, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, precipitation and soil moisture. There is also a snow depth gauge at Crooked Creek.

The goal is to maintain “climate” stations which are relatively permanent, and for which long-term records are maintained, analyzed and interpreted. The WMRC weather page contains links to WMRC legacy data sets going back to the 1950’s. The climate monitoring project includes data from many different sources listed below: The long term data page has links and summaries from Barcroft and Crooked Creek stations which have been in operation since 1951.

WMRC and the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) operate three on-line-accessible climate stations with data from:

We have installed a backup station at Barcroft which will reduce the number of gaps caused when the primary climate station goes off-line. Data is recorded hourly and must be downloaded as complete files (see web page).

Other backup stations and loggers exist at the summit (WRCC) and at Barcroft (Craig Frank data). Craig Frank also has some soil temperature data from Barcroft.

The Owens Valley Station hosts a weather station owned and maintained by the Regional Air Quality Control District. In addition, data from the Bishop Airport station, only 2 miles away, are very comparable.

West Piute Ridge transect (8 stations) WMRC collaborated with the Climate Research Division, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and the Water Resources Division of the US Geological Survey to operate a transect of weather monitoring stations climbing up into the White Mountains from the Owens Valley. The 8-station transect ran from the Owens Valley Floor at Fish Slough, just north of Bishop, up Piute Ridge to the saddle between Piute Mountain and Mt. Barcroft.

Sierran Willow Microclimate Network (40 stations) consists of about 40 microclimate stations located inside and under canopies of Sierran Willow species, primarily Salix orestera. Inside-canopy air temperatures have been recorded at 30 minute intervals since summer 2000 at about 30 stations in the East-central Sierra Nevada. Beginning in 2009 we have begun recording relative humidity as well as air temps at the base of willows, and soil temps at 5 cm depth under the willows. These latter measurements include the original 30 sites as well as 11 additional sites. Raw data files are served on the “ftp://www.wmrs.edu/weatherbeetle” ftp site. The primary purpose of these measurements is to document the microclimates experienced by the Sierra Willow Beetle Chrysomela aneicollis. See Sierran Willow Beetle Project site for site and other information.

The Sierran Willow Parallel Climate Transect (11 stations) was installed in summer 2010, and includes 11 weather stations located along three eastside drainages: Big Pine Creek, Bishop Creek and Rock Creek. These stations will complement the Willow Microclimate Network by providing a “standardized” mesoclimate context for the willow microclimates in three of the principal drainages sampled in the willow study. Raw data files will be served on the “ftp://www.wmrs.edu/weatherbeetle” ftp site. We are undergoing plans is to host wmrc open data on github or other accessible data repository.

See Sierran Willow Beetle Project site for more information.

TREX network near Independence (16 stations) was installed on the Owens Valley floor near Independence CA as part of the TREX project.

WMRC is also collaborating with other high altitude research facilities at Niwot Ridge, Storm Peak Laboratory, Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, and others, to set up comparable montioring equipment to facilitate comparison among sites. WMRC is also part of the newly formed Mountain Climate Network (Monet) working group, part of the WMRC-sponsored Consortium for Integrated Climare Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT).