The New York City meteorological network (NYC MetNet)

NYC MetNet is a collection of weather instrumentation placed on some of the highest buildings in NYC and at select points in and around the city. It is aimed at investigating air flow and atmospheric dispersion through the heavily urbanized New York City (NYC) and to explore the performance of a variety of air dispersion modeling strategies at the urban level and scaling down as far as the street level. More importantly, this data can be used to study and improve air quality. NYC MetNet can be used to deliver real-time data to first responders and emergency management centers. These agencies can use this data to respond to hazardous contaminants in the atmosphere. The instrumentation includes a RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging) wind profiler, two SODARs (SOnic Detection And Ranging) and a number of meteorological weather stations that are networked together from a central location. Much focus has been on obtaining weather data and publishing it automatically into a website. Various communications schemes, data transfer protocols and data processing routines have been implemented in order to successfully maintain an autonomous and continually updating website. Also, an effective way to display the data has been implemented by using interactive maps, table displays, and graphical images.