MCC weather celebrates 10 years
Veronica Sanchez
The MCC weather station just celebrated its 10th year of operation.MCC climatologist Erin Saffell went to MCC and continued on to ASU where she received her Ph.D. in geography.
Saffell explained the functions of every device used to monitor the weather.
“All the meteorologist devices are set up electronically on top of the climatologist building as the temperature and the moisture and precipitation is automatically transferred to our computer server.”
Some of the most important instruments that climatologists use to monitor the weather are the shelter nanometer, which measures wind speed, and the wind device, which measures wind direction.
Shelter keeps a thermometer, hygrometer, and barometer on hand to measure temperature, humidity, and atmosphere pressure.
The data she collects is often used for climate studies or is put in a display case in the hallway.
When they are working on the field (on MCC grounds), meterology and climatology students observe and record data of atmospheric conditions every 5 minutes to help forecast the weather.
Shelter explained that although there has been some urban growth at MCC from ten years ago, no major changes have been found in the date collected since that time.
