Stephen Locke
EF3
I'm sitting in Pratt monitoring today's local conditions as they evolve. I really like the Oklahoma Mesonet info on this site. Is there a site similar to this for Kansas?
Kansas Mesonet?
- Thread starter Stephen Locke
- Start date
Darren Addy
EF5
Closest thing I know of is Mesowest: http://www.met.utah.edu/mesowest/
You can choose the state (in their area), choose the kind of weather stations you want to sample (All Networks gives you the most, but some are inaccurate) and pick two parameters to map (Temp/DP for example). Click draw map.
You can choose the state (in their area), choose the kind of weather stations you want to sample (All Networks gives you the most, but some are inaccurate) and pick two parameters to map (Temp/DP for example). Click draw map.
afischer
EF4
There's the KSN weatherlab network over western and central KS... haven't honestly used this site much yet. http://www.ksn.com/weather/weatherlabnetwork
Al Pietrycha also has excellent surface station plots, though I'm not familiar with where exactly the supplementary data comes from. Here's one for the central high plains... http://stormeyes.org/maps/co.gif
Al Pietrycha also has excellent surface station plots, though I'm not familiar with where exactly the supplementary data comes from. Here's one for the central high plains... http://stormeyes.org/maps/co.gif
Andrea Griffa
EF5
Brandon McClung
EF0
those sites look nice and provide a higher resolution grid, but the one thing that allowed the oklahoma mesonet to be created was free band width among the emergency services channels. this is where all of the communication between the mesonet stations and the processor occur. if kansas had the opportunity to provide the same bandwidth, then i am sure it would have been created by now. it is amazing what you can learn when you actually pay attention in your measurements class!
Mikey Gribble
EF5
I've actually sent letters to the governor, congressmen and some guy that was in charge of like the department of commerce (can't remember which department) petitioning for the state government to begin installing a state wide mesonet, especially in SW Kansas where there is practically no data available. It's pretty damn ridiculous IMO that the single place with the most F5 tornadoes in the world doesn't even have enough surface stations to determine where a boundary, meso low or any other significant feature that could indicate an area of higher tornado potential. The surface station network would obviously hep with weather forecasting and monitoring in general too.
The guy I sent the letter to had actually petitioned the state legislature for funding to start installing surface stations and they shut him down. I tried to ask him if there was anything further we could do to help move this ahead. The letter I sent to the governor explained the good that can come from it and pointed out how Oklahoma has a very good mesonet, which the states in the heart of tornado alley should IMO. The guy never replied to me and the governor sent me back the standard not my problem contact your congressmen letter. What a joke. I'm not going to be sad to see her leave town. She literally bankrupted Kansas over the past 7 years so now we are promoting her to the federal government to be in charge of setting up a national health care program. Brilliant!
Kansas doesn't have a state funded mesonet and probably never will. I just think it's amazing because of the obscene amounts of money they spend on absolutely ridiculous projects could easily pay for this program. It is pretty expensive to install and maintain those stations though if you use really good ones, but hell install Davis Instruments. Who cares? Just put something out there. The KSN weather stations they install at schools is as good as you're going to get.
Alright I'm done ranting now lol
The guy I sent the letter to had actually petitioned the state legislature for funding to start installing surface stations and they shut him down. I tried to ask him if there was anything further we could do to help move this ahead. The letter I sent to the governor explained the good that can come from it and pointed out how Oklahoma has a very good mesonet, which the states in the heart of tornado alley should IMO. The guy never replied to me and the governor sent me back the standard not my problem contact your congressmen letter. What a joke. I'm not going to be sad to see her leave town. She literally bankrupted Kansas over the past 7 years so now we are promoting her to the federal government to be in charge of setting up a national health care program. Brilliant!
Kansas doesn't have a state funded mesonet and probably never will. I just think it's amazing because of the obscene amounts of money they spend on absolutely ridiculous projects could easily pay for this program. It is pretty expensive to install and maintain those stations though if you use really good ones, but hell install Davis Instruments. Who cares? Just put something out there. The KSN weather stations they install at schools is as good as you're going to get.
Alright I'm done ranting now lol
Last edited by a moderator:
Lanny Dean
EF5
I thought political issues were to be left at the door??
Jason Bolt
Don't blame Mikey. We're all so excited to get rid of her it's all we can think about.
Darren Addy
EF5
Strictly speaking, the political discussions are to be left at the door in the Chaser Bar & Grill forum. 
I agree that "tornado alley" states (which are also mainly agricultural) could easily find the political will to build mesonets. Basically, the just need a team of nerds to connect the weather stations already in place into a nice web interface. In Nebraska, the State Dept. of Roads already maintains a healthy number of weather stations all over the place, and if there was a way to get stations in other cities/towns on board (fire stations, schools, etc.) we could have much higher resolution information than we do now. Stage 2 would be filling in the "holes" with additional stations.
They aren't going to do this for a "fringe group" like chasers, obviously, but giving it an agricultural slant would get a lot of the population behind it, and the public safety aspects make it easily sell-able to the public also.
Iowa has done this with Iowa St. taking the lead, but naturally they have a good meteorological program (ditto with OK). That seems to be the core unit that drives these things.
I think if someone could create a partnership between state universities, state government, and get the support of the State's NWS offices/personnel, we'd see this happen (once the economy comes out of this funk, anyway. I doubt any new initiatives have a lot of hope in the current environment.)
I agree that "tornado alley" states (which are also mainly agricultural) could easily find the political will to build mesonets. Basically, the just need a team of nerds to connect the weather stations already in place into a nice web interface. In Nebraska, the State Dept. of Roads already maintains a healthy number of weather stations all over the place, and if there was a way to get stations in other cities/towns on board (fire stations, schools, etc.) we could have much higher resolution information than we do now. Stage 2 would be filling in the "holes" with additional stations.
They aren't going to do this for a "fringe group" like chasers, obviously, but giving it an agricultural slant would get a lot of the population behind it, and the public safety aspects make it easily sell-able to the public also.
Iowa has done this with Iowa St. taking the lead, but naturally they have a good meteorological program (ditto with OK). That seems to be the core unit that drives these things.
I think if someone could create a partnership between state universities, state government, and get the support of the State's NWS offices/personnel, we'd see this happen (once the economy comes out of this funk, anyway. I doubt any new initiatives have a lot of hope in the current environment.)
IAN GIAMMANCO
EF0
Here in Texas there has been talk for somewhile about developing a state wide mesonet, but this still hasn't recieved any funding from the state. We've been lucky at TTU here that the West Texas Mesonet's yearly budget is built into Tech's overall budget for the year, however we're still pretty limited on resources, thus expansion has been a little slow, or at least not as aggressive as we would like.
Chris Foltz
EF2
Well, it's very preliminary but Kansas State is working to implement a statewide mesonet in Kansas. Ultimately, there will be one mesonet location per county but funding appears to still be an issue so no telling when it will become fully deployed. Just something on the horizon. You can read a brief mention of it on page 3 of this document on the left hand side below the state map image.
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