The National Mesonet Program is a catalyst for innovation that builds on the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report Observing Weather and Climate From the Ground Up: A Nationwide Network of Networks. The report provides a strategy for filling gaps in the Nation's meteorological, hydrologic and related environmental observing capabilities that must be filled to enable significantly improved prediction of high-impact, local scale weather events. The strategy includes leveraging existing surface-based observing networks (“mesonets”) that are owned and operated by non-Federal parties (e.g., the states, academia, and the private sector) on local, state, and regional scales. To address many of the challenges identified in the NAS report the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) created the National Mesonet Pilot Project (NMPP) in fiscal year (FY) 2009, to build an infrastructure that will extend its backbone surface-based observing capabilities to nationwide coverage for observations of low-level atmospheric conditions, at a spatial resolution less than 5 km, every 15 minutes or less; and observations of soil temperature and moisture at 50 km resolution or less. The NMPP included an area in south central United States. As a follow on to FY 2009 efforts, NOAA-NWS called for a nationwide expansion of the program in FY 2010 to include stations within the entire continental United States (CONUS) and also to include observations types that could create foundational data sets for the burgeoning renewable energy industry. Global Science & Technology (GST) assembled a highly qualified team of universities, organizations, and private network operators to form the United States Mesonet Consortium (MesoUS) and was awarded the National Mesonet Program Expansion (NMPX) contract.

As the prime contractor of the NMPP and the current NMPX, GST is witnessing the enthusiasm, energy, and opportunities that have and will continue to emerge as a result of mesoscale observations. The Weather Enterprise is experiencing a paradigm shift of how weather information is collected, distributed, and consumed. The National Mesonet Program is well positioned to demonstrate adaptation of existing best practices as well as apply appropriate new technologies. Cloud computing, peer to peer communication, mircosensors, and telematics are examples of resources and technologies being utilized as part of this project. Combining weather data with streams of other information requires use of social networking participatory technologies and Web 2.0/3.0 features to extend the traditional experience of how weather information is consumed. The National Mesonet Program provides the foundational data sets for stimulating innovation. In partnership with the NWS, the MesoUS Consortium has already begun to develop innovative ways to collect hyper-local observations, focusing on specific industry needs, enhancing the quality and access of existing observations and metadata, and finding new approaches for disseminating observations.