Development of the NASA/GSFC Scanning Raman Lidar (SRL) has been in progress for a number of years. The SRL system measures high temporal and spatial resolution profiles of aerosol backscattering/extinction and water vapor mixing ratio profiles at night and more recently also during daytime. Extensive data sets exists now from several field campaigns and investigations of the atmosphere. These data sets have proven very useful in advancing our understanding of a variety of mesoscale phenomena including atmospheric frontal structures, gravity and bore waves, thunderstorm outflows, drylines and many other mesoscale features.

We will present improvements in the Raman lidar technology and examples of SRL measurements of a classic gust front and solitary wave event that passed the Northern Oklahoma region on 23 September 2000. We will discuss contribution of the SRL measurement in forcast diagnostics and its use in mesoscale atmospheric structures analysis and summarize the role of Raman lidars in advancing our understanding of these structures. A summary of how the SRL compares to the "standard" water vapor sensing instruments will also be presented. We will also discuss planned instrument improvements and atmospheric applications.