The Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS) system is a network of

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...

s run by the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's ...

(USFS) and

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

(BLM) and monitored by the

National Interagency Fire Center The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, is an American physical facility which is the home to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) and the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group (NMAC or MAC). The center w ...

(NIFC), mainly to observe potential

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

conditions. Unlike the

automated airport weather station Airport weather stations are automated sensor suites which are designed to serve aviation and meteorological operations, weather forecasting and climatology. Automated airport weather stations have become part of the backbone of weather observin ...

s which are located at significant

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

s, RAWS stations are often located in remote areas, particularly in national forests. Because of this, they usually are not connected to the

electrical grid An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power tran ...

, but rather have their own

solar panel A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

s, and a battery to store power for overnight reporting. Some instead run on a generator. In both cases, data important to operating the station itself, such as battery

voltage Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a Electrostatics, static electric field, it corresponds to the Work (electrical), ...

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

level, is often included in the hourly reports. Also because of the remote locations, most communicate with a radio connection to a

GOES The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

. In this regard, they are similar to mesonets and may be mesonets if the distance between stations (spatial resolution) is sufficiently dense. They often lack the consistently high-quality data needed for use in

numerical weather prediction Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to weather forecasting, predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of comput ...

and

climatology Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospher ...

, however. Road Weather Information System (RWIS) may likewise be self-powered and located in remote areas.

Portable RAWS

There are times when a portable weather station is required, such as planned ignitions, wildfires, and other projects where there is a need to collect and share weather information.

Portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide a ...

stations may also be referred to as "quick deploy" or QD, and this should be indicated within the name of the station to allow proper interpretation of the collected data.

External links

National Interagency Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS) Homepage
Meteorological stations Wildfire prevention Wildfire suppression equipment {{meteorology-stub