The Audubon Center is proud to be a part of the U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN), developed by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists to improve the ability of America’s decision-makers to form policies about programs impacted by climate variability and change. Through a network of climate stations across the country, the primary goal of CRN is to provide data to be used in operational climate monitoring activities and for placing current climate anomalies into an historical perspective long-term homogeneous observations of temperature and precipitation that can be coupled to long-term historical observations for the detection of present and future climate change. NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites transmit the data received from our ground-based station in near real-time to the NOAA Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C. NCDC posts the observations online in near real-time to users around the world - find our current Audubon Center data by scrolling down to the Sandstone station at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/hourly. Every CRN observing site is equipped with a standard set of sensors, a data logger and a satellite communications transmitter, and at least one weighing rain gauge encircled by a wind shield. Off-the-shelf commercial equipment and sensors are selected based on performance, durability, and cost. Highly accurate measurements and reliable reporting are critical. Deployment includes calibrating the installed sensors and maintenance will include routine replacement of aging sensors. The performance of the network is monitored on a daily basis and problems are addressed as quickly as possible, usually within days. The USCRN intrument suite is designed to measure the following climate related parameters: Air temperature Precipitation Solar radiation Wind speed Surface temperature Relative humidity To view current data from our NOAA weather station: 1. Click here to go to the NCDC website 2. Select 'Data'...then 'Observations'. 3. Scroll down to MN Sandstone to view the latest temp     and precipitation. 4. If you click on MN Sandstone, this takes you to another page. Once there, click on either: 'Sensor Data' on left - shows all the elements reporting 'Last 12 hours' on left - shows calculated temp and precip for each of the preceding 12 hours 'Last available observation date and time' at the center of the screen - shows the latest temp and precip NOAA Weather Station at ACNW The sensors are placed on a typical 3 meter (10 ft.) instrument tower at 1.5 meters (4.5 ft.) above the surface of the ground. Locations which experience high snowfall and snow depth are given special consideration. The hourly observations and the fifteen minute precipitation data are stored in a data logger attached to the tower. A GOES satellite transmitter sends the data to the National Climatic Data Center where the data undergo a quality control check and are placed on the Web several times a day. The instrument system is designed with the capacity for future expansion to accommodate additional sensors, such as soil moisture, soil temperature, atmospheric pressure, and wind speed/direction at the standard 10-meter height. The design allows for future additions of sensors on the tower without disrupting the physical site.