COOP Modernization: Building NOAA's Environmental Real-time Observation Network

Plans for modernizing the Cooperative Observer Network—now known as NOAA's Environmental Real-time Observation Network (NERON)—are well under way towards being implemented. Nearly 100 automated COOP stations are providing five-minute observations in real time from the six New England states and eastern New York. Plans are under way to expand this effort to northern Alabama and Georgia in 2005. Thereafter, depending upon the budget, the modernization will be completed in the Northeast and will begin to move westward in response to the Western Governor's Association and their plan for a National Integrated Drought Information System. The presentation will provide many additional details, will illustrate some of the modernized data from New England, and describe the modernization years between FY07 and FY11.