Use of Surface Mesonet Data in the NCEP Regional Gridpoint Statistical-Interpolation (GSI) System

The U.S. meso-network system provides meteorological observations with high spatial resolution and temporal frequency. In this study, we use surface mesonet data in the NCEP regional Grid-point Statistical Interpolation (GSI). Single time analysis experiments are conducted to test the impact of mesonet data on the analysis system and the results are compared with the GSI system without using mesonet data. The effort is focused on understanding the characteristics of innovations (observed-guess) of the surface mesonet data. Modifications to background errors will also be considered.