Mesonet Receives Best Of Kentucky Technology Award

April 20, 2010

The below article segment was copied from http://www.wku.edu/news/releases10/april/mesonet.html .  Please follow the link to see full article.

Bowling Green, Ky. - The Kentucky Mesonet has received a Best of Kentucky Technology Award for “Best Application Serving Public Agencies.”

The award was presented Tuesday in Frankfort during the Kentucky Digital Government Summit.

“We are very honored to be recognized as one of the best technological applications in state government,” said Mike Grogan, lead systems architect for the Kentucky Mesonet. “From the start of the Kentucky Mesonet program, our primary goal has always been to build something positive and beneficial for the entire Commonwealth. We feel this award confirms that our efforts for and dedication to the people of Kentucky is on-target.”

In his announcement, Kelly expressed some uncertainties about certain aspects of the USCRN data, which I would like to address below.
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Kelly:Some of the info is only updated (either at the platform or at the NCDCingestsite) once an hour.  So, for example, wecannot seem to find 5 minute wind mean/max, but only hourly.

Also,there do not seem to be 5-minute winds, but only hourly means, and a single peak gust for the whole hour, rather than for each 5-minute period, the way one would usually do this.  Also, there is scalar speed but no direction (we've never been sure why, because thisis sosimple to add), so the wind roses all come up blank. (Wind, and some of the other stuff, is not a primary measurement ... these are intended as diagnostics of temp and precip calues.)

USCRN:  Wind data have not been transmitted or archived at the 5-min interval during the history of the program.  In addition, wind direction measurements are not taken at USCRN sites. The hourly wind speed observations are not taken at 10 m heights like is typical, but at the height of the air intake to the aspirated platinum resistance thermometers,typically about 1.5 m above the ground.  These data are most useful for understanding wind influences on temperature and precipitation measurements, as Kelly mentioned parenthetically, and they are not really comparable to wind data from other networks.  In addition, infrared surface temperature and global solar radiation are also only available as hourly means or statistics.  In the future, some of these variables may be sampled at the 5-minute rate, but a decision has not been taken on this issue currently.

With regards to data updates, the USCRN station platforms transmit data hourly in three hour blocks of time (redundancy in case of a rare dropped transmission), so true latency depends on the time not only in processing the transmissions, but how far from the beginning of the hour the transmission takes place.  USCRN and USHCN-M are essentially near-real-time platforms, but not real time.
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Kelly:The nomenclature can be tricky and we are trying to come up with asyntax thatapplies to all types of platforms and data recording methodologies.  This is not easy.  Forinstance, we may wish to obtain the longterm statistics (max, min, mean) of the maximum minimum 5-minute mean(oversome defined interval), or some such thing.

The basic temperature is called Mean Temperature (because it is a 5-minute mean).  We cannot seem to find the max and min temperature within that basic 5-minute reporting interval (which is usually what we call Max Temp and Min Temp). So, what is called Max and Min temp are actually *hourly* max and min of the 12 5-minute mean temps.

USCRN: At the individual platinum resistance thermometer(PRT) level, only the 5-minute mean temperatures are retained and transmitted to NCDC.  There is no maximum or minimum for each 5-minute period.  However, a maximum or minimum temperature for the hour is calculated not from the125-minute means, but from a 5-minute window that is moved in 10-sec steps.  Therefore, the maximum and minimum temperatures for each PRT and hour are based on 360 possible 5-minute intervals during the hour. Finally, the official hourly temperature values for a station are derived by considering observations from all three PRTs in a complicated algorithm that also looks at fan speeds, pair-wise comparisons, and other system indicators, choosing the median of the available measurements.
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Kelly:One other thing, for precip, we pull the full precision, and can bin incrementally or in accumulated format, and don't have to worry about 5-minute round off if we don't feel like it.

USCRN:  Fullprecision being pulled from USCRN is tenths of millimeters. In the WRCC product, many decimal places are preserved, related to the conversion from metric to English units.
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Kelly:There are many ways to create an hour from 5-minute data, many ways of creating a day from sub-daily or sub-hourly data, and many ways of creating a month or a year, as well. Our goal is to eventually make this as explicit as possible, and also leave all these decisions to user control.

USCRN:  It is useful for users to have flexibility in calculating accumulated valuesfrom5-minute data.  However, many users simply need an hourly, daily, or monthly value that is provided without need for considering calculation rules.  We will be working with the WRCC to provide the option for users to select the hourly, daily, and monthly values for certain variables as they are directly calculated by USCRN.  For the moment,users may find some small differences between USCRN hourly, daily, and monthly observations and the ones calculated directly by the sub-hourly tool at WRCC.
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We appreciate this effort to move USCRN and USHCN-M data to the user community, including the work done at the WRCC, and hourly USCRN products now available at the MRCC.  We will work to coordinate activities so as to ensure data are comparable through these various portals, and that the user may choose the interface that is most convenient for a given purpose.

Mike Palecki, USCRN

8th Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop

2010 Annual AASC Meeting Details Available

The Annual Meeting of the AASC is held each summer.  The 35th Annual Meeting of the American Association of State Climatologists will be held 12-15 July 2010, at the Embassy Suites,4130 Lake Tahoe Boulevard, South Lake Tahoe, California 96150.

For more information visit
http://www.stateclimate.org/meetings/

New office would target nation’s fast-accelerating climate information needs

NOAA launches www.climate.gov as portal for climate science and services

full article can be found at
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100208_climate.html

February 8, 2010

"Individuals and decision-makers across widely diverse sectors –from agriculture to energy to transportation – increasingly are asking NOAA for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses. To meet the rising tide of these requests, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the intent to create a NOAA Climate Service line office dedicated to bringing together the agency’s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities."

NOAA Launches Landmark Climate.gov Portal

"NOAA is also unveiling today a new Web site – http://www.climate.gov– that serves as a single point-of-entry for NOAA’s extensive climate information, data, products and services. Known as the NOAA Climate Portal, the site addresses the needs of five broadly-defined user groups: decision makers and policy leaders, scientists and applications-oriented data users, educators, business users and the public."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BOB SKIPPER, DIRECTOR
MAY 22, 2009 MEDIA RELATIONS
MCCONNELL TO OFFICIALLY LAUNCH MESONET NETWORK

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell will officially launch the Kentucky Mesonet network during a Tuesday ceremony in Grayson County.
Sen. McConnell, R-Ky., will join Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell, Grayson County School Superintendent Barry Anderson, John Gordon of the National Weather Service and Mesonet Director Stuart Foster at 9:30 a.m. (CT) at the Grayson County Mesonet site. The site is adjacent to Lawler Elementary School and Grayson County High School off of U.S. 62 in Leitchfield.

The Kentucky Mesonet is a statewide weather and climate monitoring network collecting real-time weather and climate data on temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed and direction. Data is packaged into observations every five minutes and transmitted to the Kentucky Climate Center at WKU every 15 minutes, 24 hours per day, throughout the year and is available online at www.kymesonet.org.

Currently there are 25 Mesonet sites operational and plans call for construction of 100 stations to be located throughout the Commonwealth. The environmental monitoring network supports a variety of products to serve needs across Kentucky, including agriculture, education, energy, emergency management, engineering and construction, recreation, transportation, water supply management and weather forecasting.

Initial funding for the project was secured by Sen. McConnell through a series of federal appropriations totaling $2.9 million for the Kentucky Climate Center, part of WKU’s Applied Research and Technology Program in the Ogden College of Science and Engineering.

The Mesonet’s first station at the WKU farm in Warren County became operational in May 2007.  The Mesonet has partnered with universities, school districts,

Office of Media Relations, 1906 College Heights Blvd. #11012, Bowling Green, KY 42101(270) 745-4295 Fax: (270) 745-5387 E-mail: WKUNews@wku.edu Internet: www.wku.edu
businesses, farmers and others for site locations. The National Weather Service and media outlets are utilizing the Mesonet data for weather forecasts and reports.

Directions to the Grayson County Mesonet site:
From Ky. 259 south of Leitchfield, take U.S. 62 west approximately two miles. Continue past the entrance to Lawler Elementary School and turn on the next left. The Mesonet site will be on the right.
- WKU - a leading American university with international reach -

More WKU news is available at http://www.wku.edu/news/index.html and at http://wkunews.wordpress.com/.
RAS
Mesonet
Mcconnelladv.doc

AASC representatives will have an exciting opportunity to provide testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology.  The topic will be expanding NOAA climate services, with a focus on developing the national climate service.  This will be taking place Tuesday, May 5th 2009.  Please see details and links below for more information.

Committee on Science and Technology
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy & Environment :: May 5, 2009

Hearing: Expanding Climate Services at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
Developing the National Climate Service [Scheduled]

Information about the National Climate Services testimony, to be given 10am-12pm May 5th can be found here

34th Annual AASC Meeting
Please see the following links for more information!
Details
Registration

The 34th Annual Meeting of the American Association of State Climatologists will be held July 7-10, 2009 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is the AASC's first trip to the Wolverine State.

The meeting will be held at the historic Amway Grand Hotel, on the shore of the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids.  Please follow the above links for Details and Registration.

• January 3-5 storm with winds topping 100 mph over some mountain peaks
• January 21-25 rainfall exceeds July 2006 to June 2007 totals for some sites in Southern CA
• January 24 tornado in Ventura County
• April Sacramento Valley Freeze damages some crops
• April 100 0F readings in SE desert region locations
• May 23rd storm set new low pressure record for Sacramento for May
• June dry convective event in Northern CA sets off more than 1,000 fires from approximately 8,000 lightening strikes in 19 hours
• July heat wave
• July flash flood for southern Sierra
• October freezing temperatures in many parts of the state
• October Santa Ana winds for Southern CA
• November Santa Ana winds for Southern CA fuel wildfires
• November Central Valley fog
• December snow for southern CA

The Journal of Service Climatology publishes peer-reviewed research articles in applied and service climatology, including but not limited to agricultural and forestry climatology, bioclimatology, climate data quality and instrumentation, environmental climatology, hydroclimatology, human dimensions of climate risk and socioeconomic impact assessments, and climate services administration.The Journal also publishes review articles on the use of climate information indecision making, climate service tools (web-based or stand alone programs), data sets with detailed meta-data, climate education materials (including stand alone technical presentations),notes,comments to the editor, and invited articles.

The Journal of Service Climatology inaugurated its launch with three invited articles, by Stan Changnon (father of the Regional Climate Center concept), Ken Hubbard (High Plains Regional Climate Center) and a NOAA team led by Bob Leffler.

For more details about the Journal, please visit http://www.journalofserviceclimatology.org

DRI Data Shows Driest Spring on Record for California

Western Regional Climate Center records date back 114 years

RENO - Responding to data provided by the California Department of Water Resources and the Desert Research Institute, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today proclaimed drought and ordered immediate action to address dry conditions.

Data from the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) at DRI and California Department of Water Resources (DWR) indicate that the climatological spring season, March through May, has been the driest in 114 years of record in the state of California. Preliminary data from the California Climate Tracker (CCT, http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/monitor/cal-mon/index.html)shows that the total California statewide precipitation for spring 2008 was 1.21 inches, or 22 percent of the 1895-2007 average. In addition, DWR's 8-station index experienced its driest climatological spring in their 88 year record, with just 3.4 inches of precipitation for the months of March, April and May.

"At DRI, the Western Regional Climate Center has developed products to monitor climate in California, and in this case, the California Climate Tracker," said Laura Edwards, DRI Assistant Research Climatologist. "The WRCC serves as the archive for climate data in the Western United States."

The CCT at WRCC is updated monthly with the National Weather Service's Cooperative Observer Network (COOP) data. The current preliminary data will be quality checked, and aggregated with late reporting data and Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) data from Oregon State University, to create the final product. The record is expected to hold when all data is finalized.

DWR's northern Sierra 8-station index has 34.8 inches for the water year so far, since October 1, 2007. This is 73 percent of normal for the index for this time of year, just slightly less than the 75 percent of normal that was recorded on this date last year. The 8-station index represents precipitation conditions for Northern California. Individually, the current 2008 water year ranks as the 22^nd driest year in the 88 year period of record. Combined with 2007, the two-year total ranks as ninth driest.

Preliminary COOP data for individual stations have also established new records. For example, downtown Sacramento, whose record dates back to 1849, reported just 0.17 inches for the three month period, 0.38 inches less than the previous record set in 1934. San Francisco's total precipitation for March through May of this year was 0.47 inches, which is the driest spring in 159 years of record keeping. In southern California, Bakersfield tied its spring record with 0.08 inches, which last occurred in 1992. All 0.08 inches this spring fell in the month of May.

The winter of 2007-08 has been characterized as a La Nina season by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and may have been the strongest in 20 years. A climatological analysis shows that historically, springs following La Nina winters are typically 13 percent drier than average for California. Eleven of the 19 La Nina years since 1895 reported 80 percent or less of average spring precipitation across the state.

The 2008 AASC Annual Meeting will be held from Monday evening, July 7th until midday Thursday, July 10,th 2008, at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington, Vermont (more info). A block of rooms have been reserved for the AASC and are available until June 5th.

Quick links: Registration and Payment Options; Tentative Agenda

This year's meeting features the now-traditional dinner cruise . The Vermont version will take place aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen III (more info) on Wednesday, July 9th.

About Burlington:
Burlington is located on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The moderating influence of the Lake is particularly noticeable in the summer when hordes of Vermonters and visitors alike flock to the beaches along the lake, or take a stroll or bike ride along the several miles of picturesque Waterfront.

There is much to do in downtown Burlington and its environs, from the world famous Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop to the Vermont Teddy Bear Company just 10 minutes south of the city. Parking in public garages is free for the first two hours and only 75 cents per half hour thereafter. Burlington is centrally located just 90 miles south of Montreal, Quebec and about 3 hours away from Boston, MA.

Almost every major airline serves the Burlington International Airport,located just 5 minutes away from the meeting hotel. These include Continental, United, US Airways, Delta, Jet Blue, Northwest. Air Tran is scheduled to begin flights by mid-summer.

Registration & Reservations:
This year, meeting registration and lodging reservations are available online.You can now pay your AASC meeting and membership fees by credit card through a convenient PayPal shopping cart. You can also pay by check or PO, or at the annual meeting using a credit card, BUT you must register by June 5th so we can order meals and refreshments.

More Notes:
The draft schedule of the annual meeting is posted here.

Please indicate on your registration whether you would like to present a poster (during Monday evening's reception) or a state report or a partner's report.

Looking forward to seeing you this summer!

Sincerely,

Announcing

The Dissertation Medal in Applied Climatology for 2008

Awarded By The

American Association of State Climatologists

Application Information

Purpose

The American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) is pleased to announce its third annual Dissertation Medal in Applied Climatology for 2008 - to be awarded to a recent recipient of the Ph.D. degree in North America or U.S. Territories whose research is considered significant to applied climatology.

Eligibility

To be considered for the AASC medal, a nominee's Ph.D. must have been awarded within three calendar years prior to the award submission date (April 15, 2008).

Who Can Apply

Any recent Ph. D. graduate who has a galley-proof manuscript or a published journal article derived from dissertation work accomplished while a student in North America or one of the U.S. Territories. Dissertations per se are not eligible for consideration.

Nominations

Nominations are solicited from graduates (or their sponsors) of universities in North America and the U.S. Territories. The nominator (e.g., State Climatologist, Regional Climatologist, Department Chair, or professional colleague) should submit an original letter of nomination. This letter should discuss the extent of independence exhibited by the nominee in the choice and execution of the dissertation research.

Four reprints of the dissertation research (as published in a refereed journal or in galley-proof format) must accompany the nomination.  Please submit only one article.

Nominations received for the current year's competition remain under consideration for two additional calendar years following the initial year of eligibility.

Due Date

Nomination letters and the required reprints must be received in the offices of the AASC President on or before 15 April 2008.

A Dissertation Medal Committee will be appointed by the Executive Committee of the AASC to select the award recipient. If, in the opinion of the Committee,none of the nominees is sufficiently outstanding, the medal will not be given for that year. The award recipient along with other nominees will be notified by May 30, 2008for presentation of the dissertation medal on July 8, 2008 at the Annual Meeting of the AASC in Burlington, Vermont.

The Award

The presentation will bestow a dissertation medal and a cash award of $500 to the winning nominee. The award also includes paid attendance at the Annual Meeting of the AASC that includes out-of-pocket travel expenses up to $1000 and the waiving of all registration fees.

Corresponding Address

-         Paul Knight, President

-         American Association of State Climatologists

-         Pennsylvania State Climate Office

-         503 Walker Building

-         University Park, PA  16802

Evaluation Criteria

Nominations and manuscripts submitted for the AASC Dissertation Medal will be evaluated based on the following scale (0 to 100 points):

- Clarity of the Manuscript (0-20 points)

- Organization/Figure Quality (0-20 points)

- Applicability to Climatology (0-10 points)

- Creativity (0-20 points)

- Scientific Merit (0-30 points)

The NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center(SPC) is proud to announce the routine posting of a Preliminary Monthly Severe Weather Database Summary to its web site. This SPC site allows one to obtain a general overview of severe thunderstorm activity in near real time.Such a data source was requested by the American Association of State Climatologists, and by several private sector enterprises which need a single source of information on areas recently affected by severe weather.

The Preliminary Monthly Severe Weather Database Summary gives a running count of unofficial severe thunderstorm reports for the year both as a table and as a chart. By using cursor positioning, the data can be sorted to show only reported tornadoes, large hail, or damaging wind. Data is available by month,or again via cursor positioning, by individual days. The individual day listing, gives each report as it was recorded into the SPC?s real time event database.

The site is at:
             http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/

Once at this site:

• click on: "New:  Preliminary Monthly Severe Weather Database Summary" towards the bottom of the page.
• The initial display consists of  "postage stamps" for the 2006 and 2007 Monthly Summaries. Click on either graph (monthly distribution of the total storms) or the map (spatial distribution of the storm total).
• Clicking on a year (e.g., 2007) will give a detailed page for that year.  There are two tables below the graph. The one on the right is the statewide storm distribution since Jan 1, 2007. The table on the left gives data by month. The tabs above the map allow sorting by type of report.
• Clicking on a month (e.g., Oct 2007) gives a detailed map and graph for October 2007. The table on the right has total tornado, hail and wind storm reports for your state in October. The table on the left is daily distribution of US storm reports in October. Click on a date in the table (e.g., 10/22/2007) to retrieve the main daily storm report page for that day.

Remember that this is a listing of real-time reports received at the SPC. Storms that are reported after a few days of their occurrence will not appear on the daily storm reports. Because of this there may be differences in the number of events listed on this page and the sum in the SPC Monthly Tornado Statistics which is updated to reflect delayed reports.

It should be emphasized that this is not "official" data. The official reports are contained in the NCDC Storm Data publication which is prepared after local NWS offices have evaluated the validity of the reports and has culled out duplicate reports. Typically there is a several month lag between the occurrence of an event and when the severe weather report is made official.