NYS Mesonet Scientists Host Open House on National Weatherperson’s Day
Located deep in the sub-basement of UAlbany’s tunnel system on the Uptown Campus is a small group of scientists, researchers and students who are operating the most advanced early warning weather-detection network in the nation. Its capabilities were on display Tuesday afternoon.
UAlbany honored National Weatherperson’s Day – which is celebrated on Feb. 5 – by hosting local broadcast meteorologists and reporters for an open house at the New York State Mesonet headquarters.
The NYS Mesonet is a statewide network of 126 standard environmental observation stations. Launched in partnership by Gov. Cuomo, UAlbany and the NYS Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, the network has been fully operational for the past year.
Each NYS Mesonet station is located about 20 miles apart and collects important weather data in real-time such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, snow depth and soil moisture. That data – along with a site photo – is sent to the network’s UAlbany headquarters every five minutes, offering emergency managers, utilities, ground and air transportation facilities, farms, weather-sensitive businesses across New York, as well as the general public, immediate use in forecasting and decision-making.
Tuesday’s event showed media how to best integrate the network’s data into their own reporting.
"It's the largest network in the country,” NYS Mesonet Program Manager Jerry Brotzge told CBS 6 –WRGB meteorologist Craig Adams at Tuesday’s event. “About half of all states have a Mesonet of sorts, but ours is the largest, the most number of sites, and also the most sophisticated."
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Rick Karlin of the Times Union snaps a picture of the NYS Mesonet's station monitor feeds at Tuesday's open house. (Photo by Brian Busher)
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“There’s really no limit to what can be done with this amount of data,” Brotzge added when speaking to Zach Matson of the Daily Gazette.
Times Union reporter Rick Karlin also attended Tuesday’s event. He noted in his post-event story that “a year into its completion, New York's Mesonet is coming into its own.”
Other members of the media at the open house included:
- Alyssa Caroprese, CBS 6 - WRGB
- Steve LaPointe, CBS 6 - WRGB
- Tim Drawbridge, News Channel 10 - WTEN
- Robert Lindenmuth, News Channel 10 - WTEN
- Jess Briganti, News Channel 10 - WTEN
- Paul Caiano ‘93, News Channel 13 - WNYT
- Heather Morrison, Spectrum News - Albany
- Zach Matson, Daily Gazette
- Glenn Coin, Syracuse Post-Standard
- Patricia Kitchen, Newsday
In addition to the NYS Mesonet, UAlbany is home to the largest concentration of weather and climate scientists in New York. UAlbany’s weather enterprise includes the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, the xCite Lab, and Center of Excellence in Weather-Climate Business Analytics.
You can watch live data feeds for all of the NYS Mesonet’s standard weather stations by visiting its website: http://www.nysmesonet.org/
View social media highlights from Tuesday’s open house here.