Beech Tree News Network

Weather was the main topic of the April Morgantown/Butler County Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon.  Meteorologist Landon Hampton was the guest speaker.  Hampton provides weather for Beech Tree News, WLBQ 101.5, The Daily News, and has his own website, wxornotbg.com. Hampton’s passion for the weather was very apparent.
“We need to think about weather and climate like this… the climate is your personality, the weather is your mood that day,” said Hampton
He also spoke about the new Kentucky Mesonet site in Butler County.  The Mesonet site is on Woodbury Road and has been provided by Sam Moore.  Funding for the site has been a joint effort by the County, City, and the Butler County Farm Bureau. Butler County Extension Agent Greg Drake has been instrumental in getting the site to Butler County according to Hampton.
The Mesonet is automated weather and climate monitoring stations that measure air temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, relative humidity, and wind speed/direction.  The Butler County site will also monitor soil moisture and soil temperature which is vital to local farmers. 
Meteorological data collected at each site is available to National Weather Service forecasters and are disseminated in near real-time at www.kymesonet.org.  Observations are collected every five minutes, which are more than 105,000 observations and 2,700,000 data values every year from a single station. 
Chamber president James Runion reminded everybody about Spring Fling May 2, starting at 10:00am, and the Catfish Festival July 1-4th.
The luncheon was sponsored by Morgantown Bank & Trust and catered by Green River Caterers.