The New York State Mesonet: Siting Process and Challenges

The New York State (NYS) Mesonet Early Warning Weather Detection System is an advanced, statewide weather station network explicitly designed to enhance local data collection for improved weather monitoring and prediction. The Mesonetwork will consist of 125 surface weather stations with at least one station in every county and borough across the state.

Each of the Mesonet's 125 weather stations will measure surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, photographic images and soil moisture and temperature at three depths (5, 25, and 50 cm). In addition, seventeen of the sites (known as “enhanced sites”) will be outfitted with lidars and microwave radiometers providing wind, temperature, and moisture profiles in the vertical. Twenty of the sites will measure snow depth and snow water equivalent for hydrological applications, and seventeen of the sites will measure the surface energy budget, including radiation, sensible, latent and ground heat fluxes. All data will be collected every five minutes and then transmitted in real-time to a central location at the University at Albany, where the data will be quality controlled and archived, and then disseminated to a variety of users. Upon completion, real time data along with graphical products will be available to the public via a website (http://nysmesonet.org).

The first Mesonet site was installed in August 2015. Site installations will continue through 2016, with the entire network expected to be completed by December 2016. This presentation provides a general overview of the process for identifying site locations and the particular challenges associated with siting snow, flux, and vertical profiling sensors.