What do water conservation, tourism, the spread of hantavirus, alternative energy and growing peaches all have in common? The answer is climate! The solution to every one of these items is aided by having climate data. Weather is today, whereas climate is weather of the past.
The Utah Climate Center, located on the campus of Utah State University, is the repository for all the daily weather readings taken at thousands of locations around Utah.
This climate data is vital to doing business in Utah. It allows planners to design streets and storm drains to keep cloudbursts from harming the public. It tells engineers where to set up wind generators or solar collectors to ease Utah's energy dependence. It helps guide the public on how to conserve water; it helps water managers know when to hold the water behind the dams and when to release it.
Utah is the second-driest state in the nation, so how can we experience three consecutive dry years and still have sufficient water? It is with the use of climate data that water managers skillfully weave their hold-and-release plans. All of these things help generate income for the state, and they all depend on climatological data.
Everyone knows Utah has the "Greatest Snow on Earth." Six hundred inches of snow falls each year at Alta, but how do we know that? For more than four decades, daily weather readings have been taken at Alta. Where would the state Division of Travel find that information? At the Utah Climate Center!
When tourists want to come to Utah to spend their vacations (and dollars) at Lake Powell, or at other national and state parks, how do they know when the water is warm enough or when the dry season is? Climate data from the Climate Center!
All of the daily weather readings are obtained by the Climate Center at little or no cost. All the center requires is a very small staff to digitize the data, several off-the-shelf computers and an Internet connection. The Climate Center is literally a library of past weather data. A library for all state agencies, a library for the public of Utah and, for that matter, the world! In the past a user had to travel to Logan to obtain this valuable data or had to request it by mail. In our present digital world, this remarkable resource is now available to anyone, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the Internet.
A climate library with computers humming, telephones ringing and staff serving the needs of the public sounds expensive, doesn't it? In the old days it was, but not today. Everything is handled and served by an annual budget of less than $300,000. When you think about it, that is an incredible bargain for an extensive virtual climate library for every town and locale in Utah.
Under Utah Code, the Department of Agriculture has been mandated to gather and analyze this climatological data. Many other state agencies benefit and save money through this effort. The value saved through weather forecasts and climatological data is easy to see and understand but very difficult to quantify. Underfunding of this program is hurting state agencies and the public.
The bottom line: $300,000 annually is needed to fund this program.
Mark Eubank is chief meteorologist for KSL-TV.