Why is the Network Needed?

To understanding the causes and develop equitable solutions for urban heat, flooding, and air pollution it is necessary to have neighborhood-scale information on weather conditions. This particularly true as these conditions are not evenly distributed across cities: For example, low-income communities are often in neighborhoods with little vegetation, few trees, and large areas of impervious surfaces, which tend to be hotter than other neighborhoods.

However, there is lack of surface weather measurements within cities, which prevented needed analysis of causes of spatial variability and the efficacy of active or proposed interventions. The National Weather Service only makes meteorological measurement at one city site (Inner Harbor).   In recent years, there has been a growth of weather stations owned by individuals (black dots in maps below), but these are not uniformly spaced across the city and there are very few in low-income neighborhoods to the west and east of the city. 

To address this lack of data, the BCWN is placing instruments to measure weather conditions within Baltimore City, with a focus on under-served neighborhoods, see red dots in map below.

Here are the current locations of BCWN stations.