Comparing Temperature Data from USA Mesonet Stations and Automatic Surface Observing Stations across the Northern Gulf Coast

Temperature data from different types of instrumentation and weather station networks are compared. Across much of the northern gulf coast region of the United States, two types of networks provide a wealth of real-time weather and climatological data to forecasters, researchers, and the public: Automatic Surface Observing Stations (ASOS), and stations from the South Alabama Mesonet. A set of four across the northern gulf coast with the two of the above stations, separated by less than 31 km, are utilized. Data from September 2009 to August 2015 are used to form a six-year data set with temperature data from each station of interest. A parameter, temperature difference, is defined, and analysis performed by JMP software. This poster will discuss the diurnal and annual trends of temperature difference across the four station pairs, as well as some of the meteorological reasons for said trends and patterns.