Extended Abstract (1.3M)JP2.25
An overview of the West Texas Mesonet
K. B. Haynie, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX; and J. Schroeder, I. Sonmez, and W. Burgett
The West Texas Mesonet (WTM) project was initiated by Texas Tech University in 1999 to provide real-time weather and agricultural information for residents of the South Plains region of western Texas. Since 1999, the WTM has expanded its network to other regions including the Panhandle, Low Rolling Plains, and northern Permian Basin of western Texas. Currently, forty-four surface meteorological stations, one radar wind profiler, one acoustic wind profiler, and one upper-air sounding system makeup the entire West Texas Mesonet. Each surface meteorological station has the capability to record up to 15 meteorological parameters and 10 agricultural parameters every 5 and 15 minutes, respectively. Stations located beyond the existing radio network send data every 30 to 60 minutes.
The WTM uses a combination of communication technologies to transmit data to a base station at Reese Technology Center (formerly Reese Air Force Base), TX where data is processed for display on the West Texas Mesonet web site (http://www.mesonet.ttu.edu) and archived for later research. Communication technologies include line-of-site radio, land-line telephone, cellular telephone, and micro serial servers (Internet).
Quality assurance/control (QA/QC) tests flag data for manual review by a decision maker and any changes are added to the database.
All data is available at the WTM web site free of charge and a web interface to access archived data is in alpha test mode as of this writing.
Joint Poster Session 2, General Poster Session II (with Exhibits Reception (Cash Bar)) (Joint with Applied Climatology, SMOI, and AASC)
Wednesday, 22 June 2005, 4:00 PM-6:00 PM
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