Monitoring weather trends and extremes is an integral part of the crop management decision making process.

Augusta County's Ag Industry Board graciously funded the purchase of five weather stations to be placed around the county. With this information, we can more effectively advise decision makers about conditions in the area.

There are many high quality weather stations available on the market today. We chose to use the Vantage Pro 2 system from Davis Instruments. These systems allow precise measurements of precipitation, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, wind chill, dew point, humidity and heat index.

Interested in becoming a weather monitor for Augusta County? Please give me a call and we will gladly include you in our network.

• The Weather Channel
• Weather Underground
• Virginia Automated Flood Warning System (rainfall amounts updated every 15 minutes)

How to Use this Information

Click on one of the weather station locations (red stars) to view weather history for that location. The station reports are updated monthly.

NEW: A SUMMARY PAGE is now available with temperature and precipitation data along with the 30 year historical averages.

Monthly reports contain information on temperature (daily average, high and low), precipitation, wind speed and direction. In addition to the standard weather information, these reports contain a column entitled Growing Degree Days. Growing degree days (GDD), also known as "heat units", describe the relative warmness or coolness of an entire growing season. Agronomists have developed very good connections between the number of GDD accumulated from plant emergence and the stage of growth reached by the plant. A document that describes the various growth stages that should be reached by accumulated GDDs may be found here. If corn growth in your field does not coincide with the accumulated GDDs, than chances are some other stress (moisture, nitrogen) may have occurred limiting development.

For a very detailed discussion of using GDDs to predict and manage corn and small grain growth and development, please read either "Using the Virginia Cooperative Extension Climate Analysis Web Tool to Monitor, Predict and Manage Corn Development" or "Using the Virginia Cooperative Extension Climate Analysis Web Tool to Better Manage and predict Wheat Development"