June 17, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - As the Kentucky Mesonet continues to deploy data collection stations statewide, the group developing the network is planning a two-day workshop this fall for providers and users of weather data.
The Kentucky Mesonet Workshop will be held Oct. 7-8 at the Sloan Convention Center in Bowling Green. The workshop is hosted by the Kentucky Mesonet Consortium and the Kentucky Climate Center at Western Kentucky University.
“What we’d like to achieve in this workshop is participation from a variety of stakeholders from the state,” said Dr. Rezaul Mahmood, associate director of the Mesonet.
The agenda will include sessions on agriculture, water resource management, transportation, energy, emergency management and education as well as breakout sessions to discuss and develop action items for the Mesonet.
The workshop presentations on the use of weather and climate data should benefit both providers and users, Dr. Mahmood said. “In our case, we’d like to have an idea of how they use the Mesonet data and how we could do a better job of providing information more effectively and efficiently,” he said.
The Mesonet’s goal is to develop a statewide automated environmental monitoring network of approximately 100 stations to collect real-time weather and climate observations.
“This workshop will help us build connections with a variety of individuals representing various groups and will help the Mesonet build support all across the state,” Dr. Mahmood said.
Several sites across the state, including Adair, Bullitt, Calloway, Casey, Fayette, Logan, Ohio, Rowan and Warren, are in operation and provide data on temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed and direction.
Installations are planned in Barren, Breathitt, Carroll, Christian, Franklin, Grayson, Jackson, LaRue, Lincoln and Pike counties. Site negotiations are under way in Allen, Caldwell, Knox, Johnson, Leslie and Morgan counties.
Initial funding for the Mesonet project was secured by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell through a $1.5 million federal earmark for the Kentucky Climate Center, part of WKU’s Applied Research and Technology Program in the Ogden College of Science and Engineering.
More information about the Mesonet and the workshop is available online at www.kymesonet.org.
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Rezaul Mahmood at (270) 745-5979.
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