Mississippi Mesonet

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Mississippi Mesonet

• Presented during 2006 NCAS
• WRF Modeling Workshop
• by Loren White

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Why have a Mesonet in MS?

• Improved weather forecasts
• Improved hydrologic forecasts
• Emergency management
• Weather research and modeling
• Agriculture
• Elementary, secondary higher education

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Tornadoes (Rankin C., 2005)
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Validation of JSU Operational MM5
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Project Significance for NOAA

• Mississippi Mesonet as a testbed and prototype
  for modernized COOP (NERON)
• Data incorporated into MADIS at FSL for NOAA
  operational model initialization
• Research quality data from severe storms,
  hurricanes, and other events
• Familiarity of minority undergraduate students
  with research instrumentation and data analysis
• Building partnerships with NWS, emergency
  management, and K-12 education

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The Envisioned Network

• Real-time data available without charge
• At least one weather station per county (82)
• Attempt 20-mile grid spacing (120)
• One-minute resolution
• Accuracy and reliability
• Redundancy and consistency
• Radio communications without recurring costs

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NWS ISOS team provided 20 mile planning grid for
COOP Modernization. This was then projected onto
a topographic database.
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Survey of existing observational networks in
Mississippi
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METAR Stations (ASOS AWOS)
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Mississippi Mesonet
Purple Sites active as of October 2005   Red
New sites proposed as of October 2005
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Grid Box 90-26   Percent in Mississippi
95   Significant public lands Vicksburg
Military Park Waterways Experiment
Station Airports VKS Potential new sites in MS
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Newton
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Website Development
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Data Integration with Synoptic Network
June 17, 2005
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April 4, 2005
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Hurricane Katrina
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Future extensions of work

• Expansion of mesonet
• Data application for phenomenological studies and
  modeling
• Integration of mesonet with GIS
• Expand outreach to K-12 students/teachers
• Student experience with instrument calibration
• Coordination with flux tower and hydrological
  measurements
• Exploring additional observing approaches e.g.
  boundary-layer towers