The proposed Texas MesoNet will be a collaborative program sponsored in Texas by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), Texas A&M University, and Texas Tech University. When complete, the MesoNet will include over 500 ground-based observation sites and about 70 upper-air radar profiler sites. The MesoNet would do far more than greatly improve weather forecasts and warnings; it would serve a wide variety of public and private users in areas as diverse as air quality, agriculture, power generation, energy transmission, construction, chemical plants, civil defense and emergency management, recreation, and education. The Texas MesoNet, when combined with data available from the Oklahoma Mesonet, will serve as a domain of sufficient size for testing 3D water vapor analysis based on GPS slant delay (SW) and microwave profiler measurements. Using the MesoNet, and NOAA FLS's new JET high-speed parallel processor running at four teraFLOPS, we anticipate testing the concept of 3D moisture and momentum from a mesoscale network, and evaluating the associated potential for large increases in 0-36 hour forecast skill. The test domain being considered would include about 700 sites spaced within an approximate 50-km grid. Anticipated results include better warning for severe weather and heavy precipitation events such as the devastating F5 tornado in Jarrell, Texas on May 27, 1997, or the severe flooding events associated with Hurricane Charley and a low-pressure convergence zone in Central and South Texas in October 1998.
The Texas MesoNet, and the associated larger test domain, will also provide valuable input to a larger initiative which may lead to a nation-wide deployment of SW and radar profiler instruments. The status of all of these programs, as well as the integrated programmatic test, will be discussed by the authors.
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