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This was a comment to a friend, who was wondering why so many weather stations are at airports:
I think it's partly for convenience -- airports have weather stations because pilots and air traffic control need to know things like wind speed and direction, visibility, and whether it's raining or snowing. Because they need it for aviation, they're checking every day if not every hour, which is useful when you're looking for patterns.
City center temperature numbers might be slightly higher than airport numbers, because of the urban heat island effect. All those official measurements are taken in the shade [at a standard height above the ground], and major airports tend to be near open fields or large bodies of water.
US sites and discussions of new records tend to give the location and how far back the data for that location go. New York City's official weather records are from Central Park, not at either city airport, because the current Central Park station was established in 1920, replacing one about a mile away that ran for 1868-1920.
I think it's partly for convenience -- airports have weather stations because pilots and air traffic control need to know things like wind speed and direction, visibility, and whether it's raining or snowing. Because they need it for aviation, they're checking every day if not every hour, which is useful when you're looking for patterns.
City center temperature numbers might be slightly higher than airport numbers, because of the urban heat island effect. All those official measurements are taken in the shade [at a standard height above the ground], and major airports tend to be near open fields or large bodies of water.
US sites and discussions of new records tend to give the location and how far back the data for that location go. New York City's official weather records are from Central Park, not at either city airport, because the current Central Park station was established in 1920, replacing one about a mile away that ran for 1868-1920.