By Phil Taska, Prescott Creeks Volunteer and AZ Master Naturalist, and Michael Byrd, Prescott Creeks Executive Director
You may know that the master abiotic (non-living) factors governing any ecosystem are temperature and moisture. This is especially true for the riparian ecosystem found in Watson Woods Riparian Preserve. “Climate” can be described using exactly those parameters: hot and dry (Phoenix), cool and wet (Seattle), etc., as they are long-term average weather patterns for regions. “Weather” is short-term conditions for a specific time and location. Many of us check the “weather” by clicking a little app on our smart phones to see what is happening right now.
If you’ve been around for an active monsoon season, you’ve no doubt experienced a torrential downpour on one side of the street while the sun shines brightly on the other side. This underscores the variability of the weather in this area.
As Prescott Creeks engages in various monitoring activities in Watson Woods Riparian Preserve, the question is what is the weather actually within the Preserve? Bigger still, why is it important to know this?
Prescott Creeks has started to answer the first question by installing a weather station within the Preserve boundaries. The station collects data points (for multiple parameters) once each minute and transmits them to the Ambient Weather Network where they are recorded. Even cooler, anyone can see the data there. You can find the Prescott Creeks Weather Station here. Data collection began on August 1, 2025!
The station, pictured here, is a KestrelMet 6000. It is a professional-grade instrument that collects rainfall data, temperature, humidity, dew point, wind direction, and wind speed data.
Data can be view at the PCrks-001 AWN webpage as information “tiles” or as dynamic graphs/charts for each parameter. It can also be downloaded for analysis.
The answer to the second question above (‘Why is it important to understand the weather conditions within the Preserve?’) is that the information gathered by the PCrks-001 weather station can be analyzed in conjunction with any number of other Prescott Creeks projects such as:
- Phenology Monitoring
- Bird Surveys
- Groundwater Monitoring
- Ecological Restoration Planning
- and more!
Since the real-time data is available to the public, Preserve users can view data when planning a visit to determine if conditions at the Preserve are suitable for their activities (e.g.: how wet might trails be?)
An early (very early!) observation is fascinating. On Saturday, August 2, 2025, at 8:52 PM, the Apple iPhone weather app reported the temperature in Prescott at 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The Prescott Creeks weather station (PCrks-001) reported 68.9 degrees Fahrenheit at the same date and time. That’s 8.1 degrees cooler than Prescott.
At first blush, the PCrks-001 station is telling us that the temperature within the natural, undeveloped Preserve is quite different from the surrounding “built” environment of Prescott approximately 1.5 hours after sunset. What does this mean and how can this information benefit Prescott Creeks and the community? While a full exploration of the question is beyond the scope of this article, it may be topic of future articles once we have a larger body of data to examine. And, without the station’s data, we would not have been aware of the nature of that difference. Stay tuned for more.
Documenting the weather of Watson Woods Riparian Preserve will help Prescott Creeks, its partners, and the larger scientific community monitor the master abiotic factors (climate) of this riparian corridor ecosystem, and by extension, gain insights into riparian ecosystems elsewhere in the Granite Creek watershed.
Phil Taska, a key volunteer involved with ‘all things weather station’ is pictured with the installed station. At least seven Prescott Creeks volunteers were involved in all phases of installation. Special thanks go out to The Ironworker, Inc. in Prescott for assistance with the pole mount design and fabrication.
Thank You!
None of this would have been possible without the support of two anonymous donors who have underwritten the entire project. Their dedication to helping everyone learn more is inspiring!
Prescott Creeks thanks them both for their ongoing support.