MesoWest - Monitoring Weather Conditions around the West and the Nation John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology University of Utah

MesoWest Cooperative sharing of current environmental information in the western United States and Nation Distributing environmental information to government agencies and the public for protection of life and property Primary support for MesoWest provided by the National Weather Service

2003 Fire Locations (Red); Weather stations (Grey) Fire locations provided by Remote Sensing Applications Center from MODIS imagery

MesoWest- Tuesday April MDT

Montana Data Providers (350 Active Stations) APRS/Citizen Weather (HAM radio operators) (20) Army Corps of Engineers (1) Big Sky Ski Resort (1) Bridger Bowl Ski Resort (1) Bureau of Land Management & other land agencies (RAWS ) Bureau of Reclamation Great Plains Region (AGRIMET) + Boise (26 + 1) Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (27) Department of Transportation (48) Glacier National Park (1) Montana Counties Soil Climate Network (5) National Resources Conservation Service SNOTEL (89) National Weather Service/FAA (23) Southern Agricultural Research Center(1)

What is Required of a Local Data Provider? Provide permission to access, process, and archive provisional data (data belongs to original data provider) Make data available preferably through a single collection point Allow redistribution and archival of weather information to other agencies and the public subject to usage restrictions

How Much Precipitation?

Summary

Summary If you have environmental data, and are willing to share it with other agencies and the public, contact us We collaborate with National Weather Service Forecast Offices to coordinate local data collection efforts MesoWest is a resource available to the public and government agencies at no charge; restrictions apply for some commercial applications Focus of MesoWest is to support efforts to protect life and property; other groups provide long term data repositories of climate information (NCDC, WRCC, Soil Conservation Service, Drought Monitor program)

MesoWest - Monitoring Weather Conditions around the West and the Nation John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology University of Utah

Overview NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction (CIRP) MesoWest –Cooperative sharing of current environmental information in the western United States and Nation ROMAN –Distributing information to the fire weather community with applications available for many other user groups

What is CIRP? CIRP: NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction at the University of Utah Mission: Improve weather and climate prediction in regions of complex terrain, with an emphasis on the West Current Support: NOAA/NWS, NOAA/OGP, NSF, DOE, FHWA, Utah Division of Air Quality, Utah Department of Transportation Collaborators: More than 100 agencies, groups, and companies in the western United States

CIRP Core Research and Development Activities Enhancing understanding of weather events in the West Facilitating access to environmental observations (MesoWest/ROMAN) Improving methods to visualize and utilize weather information (ADAS) Improving numerical weather prediction models to increase accuracy of weather forecasts (WRF)

2003 Fire Locations (Red); Weather stations (Grey) Fire locations provided by Remote Sensing Applications Center from MODIS imagery

MesoWest- Tuesday April MDT

Monitoring Current Conditions September 6 20GMT ADASADAS ADAS- One approach to integrate observations

Montana Data Providers (350 Active Stations) APRS/Citizen Weather (HAM radio operators) (20) Army Corps of Engineers (1) Big Sky Ski Resort (1) Bridger Bowl Ski Resort (1) Bureau of Land Management & other land agencies (RAWS ) Bureau of Reclamation Great Plains Region (AGRIMET) + Boise (26 + 1) Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (27) Department of Transportation (48) Glacier National Park (1) Montana Counties Soil Climate Network (5) National Resources Conservation Service SNOTEL (89) National Weather Service/FAA (23) Southern Agricultural Research Center(1)

Mesowest- Collecting Data from Many Networks Participating Network Data Network Communi- cations Phone, Radio, Meteor, Satellite, Internet MesoWest Database Preprocessing ASCII, CSV, Binary, METAR, Shef mySQL Dissem- ination NWS, Agencies, Public

Soil Conservation Network Parameters Most variables already defined in MesoWest database: –Temperature, high/low temperature –Dew point temperature, relative humidity –Wind speed and direction, max speed (not wind run) –Pressure –Rain/rain rate –Solar radiation (not solar energy, UV) –Soil temperature and 1 level soil moisture (not 4 levels) –No wind chill/heat index, THW, THSW index

What is Required of a Local Data Provider? Provide permission to access, process, and archive provisional data (data belongs to data provider) Make data available preferably through a single collection point Allow redistribution and archival of weather information to other agencies and the public subject to usage restrictions

Why Integrate Surface Observations in Real-Time? Weather nowcasts rely upon knowing current conditions Logistics of disseminating provisional, current weather information is often easier than providing quality- controlled data later Weather prediction is becoming more dependent on local data assimilation Researchers depend upon observations for improving physical understanding of weather phenomena and to validate operational and research models Today’s weather is tomorrow’s climate: monitoring drought conditions requires collecting data today

Payback to Local Data Providers Improved nowcast and forecast guidance by NWS Local data resources are integrated with other nearby stations to visualize weather conditions Quality control of data provides indication of possible sensor problems based on other sensors in the area Monitoring of network outages aids troubleshooting communication problems Availability of value-added products for use in operational decision making Increased use and visibility of local observations by operational and research communities and general public In the long term, may increase demand for more surface observations

ROMAN Real-Time Observation Monitor and Analysis Network Provide real-time weather data around the nation to meteorologists and land managers Display data in fast-loading formats tailored to the wildland fire community and accessible to: –Top-level managers using high speed networks –Fire-behavior analysts and IMETs in the field over slow dial- up connections San Diego Tribune. 28 Oct. 2003

ROMAN Development Software developed at University of Utah to assist entire fire weather community to obtain access to current surface weather information Support for development of ROMAN from BLM and NWS Tools designed for fire weather applications can be used for many other purposes Tested during 2002 and 2003 summer fire seasons Operational for 2004 summer fire season Geographic Area Coordination Centers

Current ROMAN Web Portal:

ROMAN Structured by –GACC Predictive Service Areas –NWS CWA Forecast Zones –NWS Fire Weather Zones –Counties within States Intuitive, easily navigable interface –Clickable maps –Station Weather –Weather Summary –Trend Monitor –Weather Monitor –5 Day Temp/RH Summary –Precip Summary/Monitor –Weather Near Fires –Search by zip code, geographic location Triangles: RAWS Major data providers: NWS/FAA; SNOTEL; RAWS

What Has Been Happening Recently? 5-Day Max/Min Temperature, RH, Wind Speed

What Are the Current Conditions? Weather Summary

How Much Precipitation?

Summary

Framework for Collaboration Considerable infrastructure in place to process, archive, and display environmental information MesoWest team will work with any data provider at no charge to collect, archive, and disseminate basic weather parameters Modification to MesoWest database structure for additional variables, monitoring of data quality, and/or development of specialized software requires financial commitment

Soil Conservation Network Parameters Most variables already defined in MesoWest database: –Temperature, high/low temperature –Dew point temperature, relative humidity –Wind speed and direction, max speed (not wind run) –Pressure –Rain/rain rate –Solar radiation (not solar energy, UV) –Soil temperature and 1 level soil moisture (not 4 levels) –No wind chill/heat index, THW, THSW index