The University of Georgia doesn’t plan to unplug a statewide network of weather stations just yet.

Funding from an unnamed donor should enable the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network — featuring two stations in Hall County — to keep operating for at least a couple more months.

“And so we’re not starting to close (the stations) yet,” said Dale Threadgill, whose Department of Biological and Agriculture Engineering manages the program. “That’s all we know right now.”

“We will continue to seek ... funding where we can keep (the network) operational long-term,” he added. “... We hope that does happen, of course.”

The network had planned to end operations July 1 and start shutting down stations Friday because of “budget limitations and personnel changes,” according to a notice posted on the network’s website.

It now is announcing it will be shut down in late summer.

“Unless substantial blocks of dedicated funding are committed by early July 2011, we will begin the process of decommissioning weather stations at that time,” according to the network’s website. “Once a weather station is decommissioned, current data will no longer be available.”

That would be a huge disappointment, Lans P. Rothfusz, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, has said.

“Meteorologists are only as good as the data they get,” he said. “... The loss of this important, state-run network will be a setback to the quality of National Weather Service (forecasts).”

UGA started the network in 1992, growing to 81 stations, including ones at Clarks Bridge Park in Gainesville and Gainesville State College near Oakwood.

Each station records rainfall, air and soil temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, soil moisture and barometric pressure, according to the network’s website.

Some stations also record evaporation, water temperature and leaf wetness.

Operating the weather stations costs some $300,000 annually, with funding having come from the state, contracts and grants.
Threadgill, who started the network with Gerrit Hoogenboom, an ex-faculty member now with Washington State University, said the network has been used “extremely widely ... and for a very diverse group of people.”

The NWS’s acceptance “of our data tells you the quality control and assurance we have built into this thing,” he said.