NOAA's National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

Gathering Weather Data for our Customers

In addition to our forecasters, we have a staff of hydro-meteorological technicians (HMTs) and an intern who specialize in the acquisition and dissemination of weather data. A large amount of current weather data comes into our computer system from regional automated weather sensors (see photo on right) on an hourly basis. Our technicians quality control the data and watch for any malfunctions in the equipment that would inhibit transmission to our customers. They also send out a report each morning that contains high temperature, low temperature, and precipitation measurements gathered by our dedicated weather observers who call in or transmit their weather records to our office daily.

In addition, our staff collects river level data each morning and sends the information to the North Central River Forecast Center who in turn uses the data to create a model of future river levels. Next, our technicians use the forecast guidance the river center transmits to create river forecasts for our region which are sent out in a report each morning.

Shortly after midnight each day, our staff creates climate data reports for Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and Eau Claire. This data is quality controlled then transmitted for use by a wide variety of users including utility companies, the media, climatologists, statisticians, and general weather enthusiasts.

Gathering weather data at the HMT workstation

Our hydro-meteorological technicians and our intern are also responsible for launching weather balloons twice a day to gather weather data from the atmosphere above our station. Click on next to learn about how and why we launch weather balloons and to see pictures of the instruments we use.