[californiadisasters] SoCal Mesonet Spotlight

Mesonet Spotlight

By Miguel Miller

Way back in 2003 and 2004, NWS San Diego Observing Program Leader (OPL) Brad Doyle and forecaster Miguel Miller had some informal discussions about real-time weather data. We thought it would be cool to have more weather stations reporting hourly to augment the standard airport weather stations (ASOS stations) the NWS funds and maintains. It was also noted that many offi-cial climate stations did not report to us daily to include in our daily products. We began to notice some weather stations coming online from private citizens, academia and local governments, and showing up in a new online format called Mesowest, maintained by the University of Utah. But how can we know if the data is good?

What if we contact some of these new data providers and get them to adhere to NWS sta-tion siting standards? Then NWS forecasters could trust the accuracy of their real-time data and use them with confidence. And what if we found new providers to add to the Mesowest? "The more the merrier," said Brad. And so was born the revolutionary San Diego Mesonet. Brad would contact prospective data providers, visit them, and add them to the network. Michael Khuat, In-formation Technology Officer (ITO), supported Brad with the technology and means to import this data to the office. This little network slowly began to grow.

Key to the early growth was a man with a similar passion for weather data, John Toman of Temecula. He noticed his region was very underrepresented by weather sta-tions, noting that Temecula weather condi-tions on the web were portrayed by Camp Pendleton or March Air Force Base (yikes!). So he started his own weather station from his Temecula home, put it online, and called it Temeculaweather.com. This made local news in The Californian where then NWS forecaster Ted Mackechnie (now retired) noticed the story. He contacted Toman, and Ted's Mur-rieta home soon became the second station in the network. John buys, installs, and main-tains his own equipment on a cooperative host's property. In 2005 Toman began sending hourly data from his first stations to Brad to include in the San Diego Mesonet.

When Brad retired in 2007, forecaster Miguel Miller picked up the San Diego Mesonet, which had about 12 stations. Miguel had a desire to see it become an indispensable data source for fore-casters and the entire weather community. No other NWS office had done anything quite like this. Noel Isla, Brad's replacement as OPL, supported this effort as a branch of his overall observing program for the region. Since more and more amateur weather stations have become popular hol-iday or birthday gifts (because they are more affordable to more weather hobbyists), more new volunteers stepped up. The stations also became an inexpensive option for local governments, university researchers, and recreation destinations to install and maintain in order to collect and use data for their own purposes. It has been easy to convince them to let the NWS use their data and put it on the Mesowest for the world to see and use.

John Toman now provides data from 16 stations, mostly in the Inland Empire. The weather network is now called WeatherCurrents.com. In 2011, former NWS San Diego Chief Jim Purpura joined WeatherCurrents, and the two are looking to add new stations to cities in San Diego and San Bernardino Counties. Toman says, "Using our observation data, NWS forecasts for Western Riverside County in particular have dramatically improved in recent years."

Source: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/newsletter/current-newsletter.pdf

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