Every 10 minutes in the middle of Lake Matoaka in Williamsburg, a flurry of weather recording equipment prepares College of William and Mary researchers to look at longer-term weather patterns.
As the Keck Laboratory nears its 15th year of recording the weather in the City of Williamsburg, research is being done at a dizzying pace.
Every year since 2003, the weather station has recorded nearly 52,500 data points, according to Keck Laboratory director Randy Chambers.
“We have got a pile of weather information,” Chambers said.
Air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and rainfall are all totaled up every 10 minutes from a hyperlocal weather station in the middle of the lake.
The weather information is made available to the public via the lab’s website.
Occasionally things can go wrong, though.
“Bees and other waspy type things like to set up their nests right on the weather station,” Chambers said. “Sometimes that obscures or impairs the functioning of the weather station. I got stung too many times this summer cleaning out one of those wasp nests.”
The information used helps researchers at the college understand agricultural, ecological, and climate-change-related transitions in the greater ecological system, Chambers said.
That means farmers get more accurate information about when the crops need watering or when even when to plant.
It also means the lab can track how fast the rain is falling for areas that regularly have to handle flooding, Chambers said.
While the weather station can be used to tell what the weather is currently, the lab does not forecast the weather, according to Chambers.
If you want to know what the weather is like in Williamsburg on Lake Matoaka, click here.
If you want to know what the weather’s like in Greater Williamsburg, click here.
