Meteorological variables most frequently used in ecological studies in
clude, or are derived from, daily precipitation and air temperature, I
n many studies, weather data from the nearest permanent weather statio
n are used as surrogates for on-site measurements. This study discusse
s the problems with this approach and illustrates methods for developi
ng regression equations for calculating site-specific daily minimum, a
verage, and maximum temperatures, and precipitation amount from region
al monitoring information, Meteorological data were collected at four
sites along a 650 km climatic gradient from Houghton County (47 degree
s N, 89 degrees W) to Oceana County (43 degrees N, 86 degrees W), Mich
igan, Data from several National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administratio
n (NOAA) stations within 40 km of each study site were related to meas
urements made at each site, Predictive ability was improved by using i
nformation from move than one NOAA station to predict on-site temperat
ure, No increase in predictive ability resulted from including informa
tion from more than a single station when predicting precipitation, Fo
r the majority of the sites and climate variables, the best relationsh
ips were not obtained by using the nearest NOAA station; variables suc
h as the relative distance from large bodies of water or elevation app
eared to be influential, Since distance between two locations is rarel
y the most important factor governing the relationship between their c
limates, the use of the nearest weather station is not the best method
to describe weather conditions on specific sites of interest.