Mississippi Mesonet Stakeholders Workshop

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Mississippi Mesonet Stakeholders Workshop

• JSU E-center, Jackson, MS
• October 29-30, 2002

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Acknowledgments

• AHPCRC Army High Performance Computing Research
  Center
• NOAA ERAISA Environmental Risk Assessment
  Integrative Systems Approach
• Workshop Organizing Committee
• Staff and students

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Program Agenda

• TUESDAY 
• 930-945 am Welcome
• 945-1145 am Intro to Mesonets
• Topics What is a mesonet?
• Current weather networks in Mississippi
• Intro to funding and budget issues
• The Oklahoma example
• The Louisiana example
• Panel Discussion 

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• 100-300 pm Applications
• Topics General applications and benefits
• Educational aspects
• National Weather Service uses
• Safety and emergency management
• Agriculture applications
• Research applications for JSUMP
• Panel Discussion

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• 315-515 pm Technical Issues
• Topics Site selection
• Instrumentation
• Maintenance and quality control
• Communications
• Archival and distribution
• Enhanced products
• Panel Discussion

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• WEDNESDAY
• Continental breakfast
• 800-900 am Stakeholders presentations
• 915-1100 am Working groups
• Potential groups
• 1) Observed parameters and instrumentation
  2) Site selection 3) Communications and
  software 4) Funding 5) Outreach and building of
  user base 6) Other?
•  
• 1100-1130 am Reconvene for final remarks

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Introduction and Background Information
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Meteorology at Jackson State

• JSU Meteorology Program started in 1976
• Unique for role in serving minority students
• Significant growth since mid-1990s
• One of leading research programs at JSU
• Substantial computational capabilities
• Partnerships with NWS and various other agencies

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Timeline

• Late 1990s Numerical modeling implemented in
  JSUMP to support research
• 2000 Began running real-time forecast models
• Nov. 2001 NSF MRI workshop by QEM
• Mesonet 2002 Institute in Oklahoma City
• AHPCRC and NOAA ERAISA projects

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What is a Mesonet?

• Mesoscale
• Spatial scales from a couple miles up to a couple
  hundred miles
• Time scales from minutes to hours
• Smaller than synoptic scale
• Network
• Interconnected system of stations, commonly
  observing and reporting automatically

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Typical Mesonet Configurations

• May be an independent network or a network of
  networks
• Anywhere from 5 to 200 stations over state or
  region
• Data available in near-real time at least once
  an hour
• Surface meteorological observations additional
  soil data for agriculture

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Where Are Mesonets Found?

• Oklahoma
• Louisiana
• Mesowest
• Georgia
• Alabama
• Florida
• Iowa
• West Texas

• Washington
• North Carolina
• Boulder, CO area
• South-Central Alaska
• Northern High Plains
• White Sands Missile Range
• Sao Paulo, Brazil

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Mesoscale Weather in Mississippi

• Thunderstorms (severe and non-severe)
• Land/sea breeze
• Hurricanes and tropical storms
• Details of fronts
• Urban heat islands
• Fog
• Local effects of land surface cover

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Observational Networks

• NWS/FAA (METAR)
• RAWS (USFS/NPS/USFWS)
• SCAN (Soil Climate Analysis Network) (NRCS)
• NDBC LAIS GPS
• AWS SchoolNet Wunderground

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Stations by Counties

• 24 hr METAR with T, Td, Wind, MSLP 14 counties
• Real-time and archived T, Td, Wind 27
  counties
• Any observations at all 40 counties
• No observations at all 42 counties
• 10 counties without station within 15 mi

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How many stations should we have?

• For every location in state to be within
  15 miles of a stations would require about 105
  stations.
• Priority should be on filling major observational
  gaps first at least 15 new stations

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Funding Options

• NSF Major Research Instrumentation
• Mississippi Space Commerce Initiative (MSCI)
• Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive
  Research (EPSCoR)
• Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology,
  Education and Training (COMET)
• Currently ongoing projects
• Stakeholder contributions?