My Backyard Thermometer.

The past few days I’ve noticed my thermometer had a temperature reading higher then that of all the local NWS weather stations. But when my station shot up to a high temperature of 49.F today while my nearest NWS station reported a high of 39 I needed answers as to why. I thought maybe it was because it was warming up too hot in the sun. But it is hard to determine what exactly is happening. I found some thins supporting my stations reading. This made for a reasonable argument and I needed to find out what was going on, This is what I found out.

I first must say this thermometer has been in this same location for more then a year. and it has gave me many trustworthy reports. It went through last spring with no problems at all. This made it wonder what could be causing such warm temp readings this week. So I did some digging and found out not only are my high temperatures warmer then the local NWS stations. but my night time lows are also much warmer. I compared my lows with the NWS Osceola Airport weather station for March 4rd and this is what I found. 10.F was the low at Osceola Airport with a high of 39.F. While my station reported a low of 18.F and a high of 49.F what could cause a difference like that? This caused me to do some more digging and, I found that a local Weather bug station located to my west in Amery reported a low of 12.F and high of 47.F March 4th. So this looked more likely to support that my weather station was correct. After this I decided to see what Wunderground stations were reporting. nearby and they also supporting that my “warm” temp reading was correct. I seen highs all in the upper 40s. but all the NWS stations were in the lower 40s Why does it seem like the NWS stations are all reporting “coolish” temperatures? Or is it that my station along with others are reporting “warm” temperatures?

Here are some reason why I think my station might have a warmer. My station has some protection as you can see in the 2nd picture above There is a collection of buildings, sheds and dark trees behind my thermometer, that are location on the North side of my yard. This may help reflect heat towards my yard? Also as seen in the picture above is a lot of brown grass this can heat up more then snow pack as well.another reason I thought up is Maybe since the air has been so still lately from a strong high pressure system maybe this is helping a lot more heat to build up in such locations as my yard?

A possible explanation to why the NWS stations are reporting colder temperatures is most NWS weather stations are located in open fiends near airports where there is no trees around to have heat build up. Same with nigh time lows. Trees and buildings may help hold in heat instead of radiating it away like an open field would do.

This was my best guess as to why my station might be warmer. Anyone else who may be able to shed some light on this should feel free to comment on this post.