Fairbanks, AA - The National Weather Service, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management installed a new weather station at Wickersham Dome along the Elliot Highway late last month. Before now, there was no available weather data between Fox and Livengood.
28 miles up the Elliot highway, a new weather station is collecting all kinds of data including current temperatures, relative humidity wind speed and information about wind gusts. National Weather Service Meteorologist Ed Plumb says he had a few reasons to champion the project. “It’s at elevation so we can get an idea of what the winds are doing along the road when we have some blowing snow," he says. "Also that location is under our radar where we have some Doppler coverage so during the summertime when our radar is showing we have some precipitation falling we can actually ground truth it with this weather station because it has a rain gauge there.”
The weather station went up close to the Wickersham Dome Trail head, which could be considered the gateway to the BLM’s White Mountains National Recreation Area.
Plumb is also the race director for an annual ultra-distance ski, bike and foot race that takes place in the Rec Area. He says he’s received lots of positive feedback from people who use the trails regularly in the winter.
“Yeah, actually I have heard who are excited about this weather station because a lot of people go up there and you never know how windy it’s gonna be," he says. "You never know how windy it’s gonna be. In urban Fairbanks, we don’t get a lot of wind, so that is often a shock.”
The new weather station updates hourly on the weather underground website, an online weather forecast provider. Plumb is working to get make the information more readily available through the Weather Service’s website as well.