There's a new addition to the Central Wisconsin Airport.

It's called an automated weather observing system, or AWOS for short.

This one was installed to replace an older one.

"Components of that system were failing, so we decided about a year and a half ago that we would have to pursue funding to go ahead and make that replacement,” says Tony Yaron, Airport Manager at Central Wisconsin Airport.

The AWOS is basically a system made up of many different weather detectors.

The one at CWA has a visibility sensor; a ceilometer, which measures the height of the cloud ceiling; a precipitation gauge; and sensors to determine wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, temperature, dew point, and sky condition.

A computer that's hooked up to the instruments sends the data collected by the sensors to various places.

The data is made available to the airlines and pilots on a radio frequency and a telephone line at the airport.

It’s also displayed on an internal video system throughout the airport.

The information “goes up to the [air-traffic control] tower and is broadcast or displayed there on a terminal. [It] allows the controller to disseminate that information over the airwaves,” says Yaron.

But that's not all.

Each hour, these reports are sent to the National Weather Service (NWS) and made available on the internet from the NWS Website, so meteorologists and the general public can access them.

Many similar weather observing systems are scattered across Wisconsin and the U.S., providing valuable weather observations from ground level, including the ones you rely on when you watch our weather forecasts.

You can see what some AWOS observations look like by clicking on the link below this article.