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Geography Department

Towson Weather Station

We have the Weather Station up and running!
The Department of Geography weather station was assembled and installed at the end of May, 2004 after a long wait. The station is a solar-powered digital weather station from Campbell Scientific, Inc.

You can't see all of the equipment in these pictures, but the station includes: a barometer, temperature sensor, relative humidity sensor, pyrometer (measures insolation), rain gauge, solar panel, lightning rod, and battery.

You can see the station up on the hilltop above Towsontown Boulevard near the Gilchrest Center bridge. TU's facilities Management poured a concrete foundation for the tower, and built a fence enclosure. Twelve student volunteers (pictured above) helped to map the site.

The station collects temperature, relative humidity, incoming solar radiation, and rainfall every 15 minutes. Air pressure is collected every hour. This graph was made from data collected in early May, 2004:

Notice how the solar radiation (in yellow) reaches a maximum at 1pm, due to daylight savings time. Sharp drops in insolation occur as clouds pass overhead. As the amount of insolation increases, so does temperature (red). Relative humidity (blue) decreases as air temperature increases. Intrested in learning more? Contact Dr. Martin Roberge or take a class in Physical Geography!