Baltic's new automated weather station comes online

P.E.I. has a new automated weather station near Kensington to help farmers and fishermen.

The Baltic station connects with the AgWeather Atlantic Network, providing wind speed, direction, rainfall amounts, forecasts, trends and other information. The network monitors 17 stations in P.E.I. and a total of more than 150 across Atlantic Canada.

• AgWeather Atlantic

A smart phone app that is being developed should be ready by the spring. The P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture is working with its members and project partners to alert more farmers of the service and to get users' feedback.

Barry Murray of theKensington North Watersheds Association helped with the new station.

This is a modern, high quality weather station. It's powered by solar, so there's a big solar panel here on the front. Up on the top is a device for measuring wind speed and direction. At the very, verytop on that little panel facing the sky is the centre that detects solar radiation, he said.

There are thermometers that measure the temperature and then from that measurerelative humidity.

The accumulated weather information will allow farmers to plan their crops while protecting waterand the environment, Murray said.

A farmer can look at the big picture for say growing new crops, maybe grapes, maybe a new type of grain. Is our climate changing a little bit? Would he like to try something new? This service will help, he said.

Data from your tractor

Dr. Erin Smith, a scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Nova Scotia, said the network is making good progress.

AgWeather Atlantic is a weather website that has an agricultural focus, which is very different from existing weather and climate websites.AgWeather Atlantic will give producers the data and decision support tools to help with on-farm business risk management," Smith said.

"Ultimately, we hope to develop a mobile application so producers can access this kind of information from their tractor or the field."