A Technical Overview of the New York State Mesonet Standard Network

The New York State Mesonet (NYSM) is a network of 126 standard environmental monitoring stations deployed statewide with an average spacing of 27 km. The primary goal of the NYSM is to provide high-quality weather data at high spatial and temporal scales to improve atmospheric monitoring and predict...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology Vol. 37; no. 10; pp. 1827 - 1845
Main Authors: Brotzge, Jerald A., Wang, J., Thorncroft, C. D., Joseph, E., Bain, N., Bassill, N., Farruggio, N., Freedman, J. M., Hemker, K., Johnston, D., Kane, E., McKim, S., Miller, S. D., Minder, J. R., Naple, P., Perez, S., Schwab, James J., Schwab, M. J., Sicker, J.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Boston American Meteorological Society 01.10.2020
Subjects:
Agriculture
Atmospheric monitoring
Data quality control
Deployment
Design optimization
Emergency management
Emergency preparedness
Emergency vehicles
Environmental monitoring
Extreme weather
Meteorological data
Monitoring systems
Quality control
Rural areas
Situational awareness
Spatial data
Systems design
Transport
Urban areas
Utilities
Weather
Weather conditions
Weather forecasting
Winter
Winter weather
New York
United States > US
ISSN:0739-0572, 1520-0426
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The New York State Mesonet (NYSM) is a network of 126 standard environmental monitoring stations deployed statewide with an average spacing of 27 km. The primary goal of the NYSM is to provide high-quality weather data at high spatial and temporal scales to improve atmospheric monitoring and prediction, especially for extreme weather events. As compared with other statewide networks, the NYSM faced considerable deployment obstacles with New York’s complex terrain, forests, and very rural and urban areas; its wide range of weather extremes; and its harsh winter conditions. To overcome these challenges, the NYSM adopted a number of innovations unique among statewide monitoring systems, including 1) strict adherence to international siting standards and metadata documentation; 2) a hardened system design to facilitate continued operations during extreme, high-impact weather; 3) a station design optimized to monitor winter weather conditions; and 4) a camera installed at every site to aid situational awareness. The network was completed in spring of 2018 and provides data and products to a variety of sectors including weather monitoring and forecasting, emergency management, agriculture, transportation, utilities, and education. This paper focuses on the standard network of the NYSM and reviews the network siting, site configuration, sensors, site communications and power, network operations and maintenance, data quality control, and dissemination. A few example analyses are shown that highlight the benefits of the NYSM.
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ISSN:0739-0572
1520-0426
DOI:10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0220.1