Photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Agriculture Weather stations like this one near Beardsley have been built around Minnesota over the past couple of years. The Minnesota Ag Weather Network (MAWN) makes weather and other data that are important for farming available to the public online or through a phone app.

A growing network of weather stations are helping to provide useful data for farmers around Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said this week.

The MDA announced that two new stations in the Minnesota Ag Weather Network (MAWN) went live in Rock County, near Leota and Luverne. The stations provide real-time local weather data important to farm operations.

“These stations give farmers access to the weather data they’ve been missing,” Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said in a Thursday news release. “It’s about providing tools that help producers protect their land, use water wisely, and adapt quickly to changing conditions.”

There are currently MAWN weather stations in southwest Minnesota counties including Lac qui Parle, Lyon, Renville, Redwood, Brown and Jackson Counties. Last year, a station was built near Cottonwood as part of the expansion. Data collected by the weather station can be used to help farmers follow best practices for tasks like spraying fields or applying fertilizer, said Ashley Runholt, agronomy sales manager at the Cottonwood Co-Op.

“It is really beneficial, to ensure that we’re compliant with everything,” Runholt said. “Also, it’s a really neat tool for farmers.”

Over the past couple of years, about 27 new MAWN weather stations have been built around the state, said Stefan Bischoff, project manager for the MAWN expansion. “We plan to continue to expand the project in the next two to three years,” Bischoff said. In 2023, the MDA received $3 million from Minnesota’s Clean Water fund to build new weather stations in partnership with landowners and the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN).

The public can access the weather and agronomy data either through the NDAWN website, or a phone app.

Bischoff said the MAWN weather stations are about 33 feet tall. “It’s a large tower that we secure with a concrete base and guide wires,” he said. The weather stations also have sensors that monitor moisture, temperature and frost underground. “It’s all powered by solar, so it helps us get into more remote areas,” he said.

“Our main goal is to have a weather station within most agricultural areas in Minnesota,” Bischoff said.

Bischoff said MAWN has received almost 150 applicants for weather station sites around Minnesota. Not all of the proposed sites will fit the project’s criteria, he said. But they’ve had success working with local partners.

Runholt said when she learned that the MDA was looking for possible weather station locations in Lyon County, she asked the Cottonwood Co-Op manager about applying. Later, MAWN said a Cottonwood location would be a good fit for the program.

The weather station went live last year.

Runholt said the Cottonwood Co-Op notified area farmers when the Cottonwood MAWN station went live, and encourages people to use the data. “It’s a pretty neat way to look at metrics,” she said.

One important tool that MAWN provides is a temperature inversion alert, Runholt said. A temperature inversion is an atmospheric condition that is bad for spraying fields – it can cause the chemicals to drift away from the areas where they’re supposed to go.

In addition to information on spraying conditions, MAWN and NDAWN also provide data on wind speeds, rainfall totals, soil temperatures and moisture, and more. Other agricultural tools include a cattle comfort index, which can help alert farmers to extreme temperatures that could harm their cattle, Runholt said.

“It’s been great to see the expansion,” Bischoff said of the MAWN project. “It’s really awesome to go out there and talk with landowners and hear the enthusiasm.”