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Kraklau is originally from Minnesota. He came to North Dakota State for his college education and enrolled at his NDSU in Fargo as an engineering major. Two semesters passed before I realized it wasn’t the career path for me. One day, he was talking to one of his friends who specializes in agricultural systems management, and he said it seemed much better than his original plan.

He changed his major and completed his bachelor’s degree in five years. After graduating, he noticed a research specialist position open at the North Central Research Extension Center and applied.

He spent two years as a research specialist before Joe Efferts left the office. With his resignation, someone needed to fill his seat, and that person turned out to be Kraklau. He enjoys his job, he said, even though he doesn’t have much choice in the matter.

As part of his job at the research center, he checks equipment outside his office every morning to measure temperature, precipitation, humidity levels, wind speed and the depth of frost on the ground. Kraklau said he typically goes out for about 10 minutes each morning to check all the equipment and collect readings to send to his NWS office in Bismarck.

Austin Kraklau uses a tube from a precipitation gauge to collect snow core samples on Monday after Sunday’s snowfall.

In front of the Agricultural Research Center, a metal can is left on a stand inside the ring, covered by a triangular piece of metal hanging from the ring. The can is used to collect moisture and determine how much has fallen. Triangles were used to indicate the direction the wind was blowing before airport technology took over.

The precipitation gauge was described as follows. “awkward” and “Spaceship shape” Written by Kraklau. The sediment falls into a container on top of a scale inside the device. This allows the National Weather Service to know exactly when precipitation will occur.

There was a thermometer on the side of the building, like a small lantern attached to a 6-foot-tall pole, which sent the temperature to a black box in Kraklau’s office, where he wrote down changes in temperature. Find out the maximum and maximum temperatures. Low for that day.

During the winter months, when things are a little slow, Kraklau said she will help out as much as she can. The greenhouse houses seeds planted by the center to study which pesticides and herbicides work on which plants. Sometimes equipment breaks down, so if you have time, you’ll have the opportunity to help get it back up and running faster.

Instead of measuring precipitation, they use special sticks to measure snow. His usual testing ground is the parking lot. Parking lots are flat and regularly plowed, so it’s much easier and more accurate with fresh snow.

Ciara Parizek/MDN Austin Kraklau of the North Dakota State University Research and Extension Center brought a snow core tube to the lab to measure snowfall.

The bars look like rulers, but all spacing is measured in tenths.

If the parking lot was not plowed before the storm, snow cores should be collected in long metal cans, melted in a laboratory, and then measured to estimate the amount of moisture remaining on the ground in the form of snow. there is.

Every time new snow falls, you have to go out and take a new snow core sample and repeat the measurement process.

He also uses a frost gauge, which is a plastic tube filled with water that is inserted into a pipe in the ground. The water in the tube freezes and shows how deep the frost gets. The easiest way to check is to check the water to see where it has stopped freezing and to break the ice in the tube until you find the end.

Kraklau said collecting snow cores and frost measurements will help the NWS predict what flooding hazards will be created by melting snow.

Minot International Airport has an Automatic Weather Observing Service (AWOS) that measures wind direction and speed (in knots), visibility (how far a person can see), cloud cover, temperature and dew point (in degrees Celsius), and barometric pressure (in inches). . of mercury. Automatically records all information every 5 minutes.

Kraklau’s job is more complicated than that, requiring him to spend time outside and write and send documents by hand. By spending extra time out in the field and physically collecting samples, Kraklau ensures that the numbers the NWS provides to the public are accurate and up-to-date.

Temperatures in February are higher than the long-term average

The average temperature for February was 25.4 degrees last month, 13.3 degrees higher than the 117-year long-term average of 12.1 degrees, said Austin Kraklau of the North Central Research and Extension Center in south Minot.

According to Kraklau, the lowest temperature this month was -6 degrees Celsius on February 16th, and the highest temperature was 53 degrees Celsius on February 27th.

Total humidity for the month was 0.49 inches, 0.01 inches below the long-term average of 0.50 inches.

Kraklau said the total snowfall this month was 2.7 inches, three inches below the long-term average of 5.7 inches.