Farmers hoping to harvest before the first freeze are watching. And, parents deciding how to dress the kids for school are, too. Plenty of Kansans want to know how low the temperatures go.
Kansas Mesonet, part of the Kansas Weather Data Library, shows that information for the whole state in one place. The new online feature called the Freeze Monitor, at http://mesonet.k-state.edu/freeze/, includes a map indicating how low temperatures dipped in a 24-hour period and how long they stayed below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
The page includes a chart showing the historical average, and the earliest and latest dates for the first 32-degree F reading. The chart is updated every five minutes.
The mesonet is comprised of weather stations set up on public and private land across Kansas that also record such data as precipitation, wind speed and direction, and relative humidity.
The Kansas Weather Data Library is based in K-State Research and Extension at Kansas State University.