The location had a weather station originally installed in November 2018, but it was damaged last August and could no longer provide certain data.

Snyder said that having local meteorological data fully back up at the site not only provides more complete insights on how the local climate is changing over time — which he said can be compared to regional, national and global trends — but is also crucial to cross-reference with water data taken in Mirror Lake.

The Ausable Freshwater Center works in conjunction with the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to monitor Mirror Lake’s water quality and health year-round.

“We have a monitoring buoy that we maintain with AWI and RPI that’s taking continuous measurements,” Snyder said. “(The weather station) helps to validate that data from the buoy — when you look at water temperature and how that’s rising and falling, (as well as) ice cover and duration,” Snyder said.

The weather station monitors temperature, precipitation rate and accumulation, wind speed and direction, air pressure, solar radiation, ultraviolet radiation index, dewpoint and humidity. It’s wireless and updates its data in real-time online, which is available to the public at tinyurl.com/3dnk45ve.

The station’s elevation of 1,890 feet is 35 feet above Mirror Lake’s surface. It stands less than 300 feet away from the lake’s shoreline. The station is on Lake Placid Club property. Art Lussi, speaking on behalf of the club, said that it was happy to provide the space needed to house the station.

“We’re glad to be good neighbors and support them,” he said. “It’s a great thing and, as we all know, monitoring is everything.”

Lussi said there was no substitute for accurate and precise data when it comes to establishing an informed understanding of weather and climate trends at the local level.

He added that this was especially important in a region whose mountainous topography can yield notably different weather conditions at the same time between locations that are relatively close to each other. Lussi noted that the weather station at the Adirondack Regional Airport often has colder temperatures than most of the Tri-Lakes region — a result of the bowl-shaped terrain, which funnels and concentrates relatively colder air in a small pocket around the airport.

“With weather stations, the more you have, the better,” he said.

Local meteorologist Scott McKim — the science manager at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center’s Whiteface Mountain Field Station — had similar thoughts.

He said that while research-grade weather stations used by the National Weather Service, New York State Mesonet and many airports around the world rely on a higher caliber of instrumentation to meet stringent precision and accuracy standards, those are extremely expensive and sometimes far away from each other.

He said the Davis, Ambient and Rainwise brand weather stations that comprise the Weather Underground sensor network are more affordable and straightforward to install and maintain. This allows stations like KNYLAKEP27 to play an important role in the weather community.

“These sorts of stations are very valuable, and they’re everywhere,” he said. “They fill in the grid.”

McKim added that the station was a “perfect fit” for the Ausable Freshwater Center, AWI and RPI as organizations that monitor and routinely work on Mirror Lake to collect water data, but are all based outside of Lake Placid — in Wilmington, Paul Smiths and Troy, respectively.

“It’s eyes and ears for (hyper-local) weather monitoring to inform their Mirror Lake lake monitoring,” he said. “It’s a great option that gives them, I think, very good real-time quality data for where they are.”

AFC, AWI and RPI are supported by the Mirror Lake Watershed Association, the North Elba Local Enhancement and Advancement Fund grant program, the town of North Elba, village of Lake Placid, the Ironman Foundation, the state Department of State and private donors, whom Snyder collectively thanked for contributing the donations that were needed to pay for the new weather station.

For more information on the Ausable Freshwater Center’s Mirror Lake monitoring program, visit tinyurl.com/2wv9asjy.