VANDENBERG VILLAGE The Santa Barbara County Fire Department announced earlier this week the implementation of the county’s ninth Remote Automated Weather Station in the Purisima Hills near the Burton Mesa communities of Vandenberg Village, Mission Hills and Mesa Oaks.
The project includes the installation of a fixed Remote Automated Weather Station, which monitors the weather and provides data that assists land management agencies with a variety of projects, such as monitoring air quality, rating fire danger and providing information for research applications. The new unit will provide real-time weather data every hour to assist fire managers with determining fire danger ratings for the Central Coast, according to a news release.
The data will contribute to more effective fire business management decisions, including fire resource staffing levels, resource pre-positioning and district project activity levels. The weather information is sent via satellite to various government agencies and is stored permanently by the Western Region Climate Center. The data is accessible by the public via the internet at https://raws.dri.edu.
The new RAWS site is located near the crest of a ridge covered in annual grass and sage brush and is accessed by an existing private road. The property is owned by Sentinel Peak Resources, which operates the nearby Lompoc Oil and Gas Plant.
