The cold is coming. Freeze warnings have been issued for portions of western Kansas for the first time this fall. The Kansas Mesonet’s Freeze Monitor (mesonet.ksu.edu/freeze) will be available again for the 2017 fall frost/freeze season. This tool focuses on displaying the coldest temperatures observed across Kansas during the previous 24 hours. It answers the frequent question: How cold did it get last night? It also tracks the first fall freeze date for each station for comparison to local climatology. Data will update every five minutes on both the map (Figure 1) and table (Figure 2).
Important for producers and gardeners, the lowest temperatures below freezing are also addressed, as some crops and commodities have lower thresholds for damage. This feature allows users to select options to view maps/data of the duration below freezing (32 degrees F) and also the number of hours below 24 degrees F. While both are of interest, the lower threshold is of great importance to wheat growers later into the fall season.
The data displayed in the tables below the maps can be sorted. By clicking on the header of a particular column, it will sort the table by that column. This makes it much easier to see what area was the coldest in the state, as well as earliest freeze and earliest climatological freeze data. This table can also be copied from the browser and pasted into a spreadsheet for further analysis.
For cold temperatures occurring further into winter, the Freeze Monitor will still be active but the maximum and minimum temperatures can also be viewed on their particular pages along with the maximum wind gusts: http://mesonet.k-state.edu/weather/maxmin/.
The Freeze Monitor is updated in the spring, as a new growing season arrives, to show the spring freeze climatology.
The Freeze Monitor is available at: http://mesonet.k-state.edu/freeze/
Chip Redmond, Weather Data Library/Mesonet
christopherredmond@ksu.edu
Mary Knapp, Weather Data Library/Mesonet
mknapp@ksu.edu
Dan Regier, Weather Data Library/Mesonet
regierdp@ksu.edu