New Online Bulletin Provides Weather Data

North Dakota State Climatologist Adnan Akyuz has launched an online climate publication.

"It is an effort to educate the public about North Dakota's climate," says Akyuz, who also is an assistant professor of climatology in North Dakota State University's Soil Science Department.

He plans to publish the "North Dakota Climate Bulletin" quarterly. NDSU; NDSU's College of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Natural Resources; and the State Climatology Office host the site.

The first issue is about winter 2006-07. It contains a message from Akyuz; a summary of the weather in December, January and February; several pages of graphics illustrating precipitation and temperature data for that period; a tornado, hail and wind report; climate outlooks for spring; and a column titled Science Bits. This issue's column explains how climatologists calculate climatic normals, the departure from normal air temperatures and percent of normal precipitation.

John Enz, retired state climatologist; Barb Mahoney, a research specialist in NDSU's Soil Science Department; and Mark Ewens of the National Weather Service in Grand Forks contributed to the first issue.

To view the publication, go to http://www.soilsci.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndawn/Reports/winter07.pdf.

"The Red River flood of 1997, weather summary of spring 2007 and the summer 2007 weather and hydrologic outlook will be the upcoming features of the next issue," Akyuz says.

Agriculture Communication