Mesonet receives national award
Transcript
Business Editor
The Oklahoma Mesonet, the first state-of-the-art system of environmental monitoring stations in the U.S., has received a special award from the American Meteorological Society.
The statewide system was recognized for protecting lives and aiding weather research in a January 12 ceremony at the AMS 85th annual meeting in San Diego.
The statewide system of 116 computer-linked monitoring stations, a research collaboration between the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, began operating in 1994.
“This award is a good indication of the kinds of national achievements made possible when OU and OSU get together and pool their resources and areas of expertise,” said OU President David Boren.
OSU President David Schmidly said the Oklahoma Mesonet is “an outstanding example of the active engagement of our institutions with the citizens of the state and nation.”
John T. Snow, dean of the OU College of Geosciences and director of the National Weather Center programs, also was honored by AMS. He received the 2005 Charles Franklin Brooks Award for outstanding leadership and services to the society over many years.
The Oklahoma Mesonet consists of 116 automated stations covering the state’s 77 counties. Each station detects air temperature, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure and rainfall every five minutes. Soil temperature and soil moisture are measured every 15 to 30 minutes.
The data are collected by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS), based at OU, and distributed within minutes throughout the state and the country. The information aids weather forecasting, drought and agricultural management, public safety, education and electric power forecasts.
Current weather information from the Mesonet is available at http://www.mesonet.org.
In a visit with The Transcript last year, former OCS director Kenneth Crawford said the original idea for the Mesonet began at OSU in 1982. “We had a similar idea in Norman in 1985. We discovered each other in 1986 and we’ve been a team ever since.”
A proposal for the Mesonet was drafted in 1988, but the real hurdle was obtaining funds for the untried concept, said Crawford, who is now director of National Weather Service Integrated Surface Observing Systems.
“In the early years I spent a lot of time at other agencies seeking funds,” Crawford said. “I went to eight state agencies, asking each to put up $25,000. Sen. Cal Hobson opened the doors and we made the house calls.”
Governor Henry Bellmon helped raise the awareness of what the Mesonet could do in Oklahoma and spearheaded the drive to find the $2 million in state funds needed to get the program under way, Crawford said. “We were funded by oil overcharge funds in 1991, and the two universities added $700,000. The $2.7 million bought $1 million worth of sensors, about $500,000 in needed equipment and three years of human talent.”
In 1993 the Noble Foundation provided $225,000 in “bridge funds” until more permanent funding could be obtained, Crawford said. In March, 1994, ceremonies were held at the Capitol rotunda to dedicate the Mesonet as operational.
Providing quality data in real time is what sets the Mesonet apart and makes it attractive to researchers. The system collects about a million observations a day in Oklahoma.
Other states and countries have sought to establish similar systems. In 2002, OCS held a Mesonet conference in Oklahoma City that drew representatives from 25 states and Brazil, Canada, Nepal and Finland.
The OCS has trained personnel from more than 150 Oklahoma public safety agencies to use the Mesonet to guide their decisions in dealing with fires, floods, severe storms and even chemical spills. Known as “OK-FIRST,” the safety program helped a dispatcher evacuate Tanger mall in Stround on May 3, 1999, 45 minutes before a tornado roared through the mall and flattened everything in its path.
In 2001, the OK-FIRST program was named one of the five most innovative government projects by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. More than 1,600 agencies from throughout the country had applied for the award that year.
Crawford, along with Ron Elliott, who heads biosystems and agricultural engineering at OSU, and Renee McPherson, acting OCS director, accepted the AMS award on behalf of the Oklahoma Mesonet Steering Committee and employees.
Paul Risser, chancellor of the State Regents for Higher Education, nominated the Oklahoma Mesonet for the AMS award. He said the Mesonet “serves as a useful model for joint programs between our comprehensive research universities.”