Benefits and Beneficiaries of the Oklahoma Mesonet: A Multisectoral Ripple Effect Analysis

Abstract

Since the Oklahoma Mesonet (the state’s automated mesoscale weather station network) was established in 1994, it has served a number of diverse groups and provided public services to foster weather preparedness, education, and public safety, while also supporting decision-making in agricultural production and wildland fire management. With 121 monitoring stations across the state, the Oklahoma Mesonet has developed an array of technologies to observe a variety of atmospheric and soil variables in 5- to 30-min intervals. These consistent observations have been especially critical for predicting and preparing for extreme weather events like droughts, floods, ice storms, and severe convective storms as well as for development of value-added tools. The tools, outreach programs, and mesoscale data have been widely utilized by the general public, state decision-makers, public safety officials, K–12 community, agricultural sector, and researchers, thus generating wide societal and economic benefits to many groups. Based on practical application examples of weather information provided by the Oklahoma Mesonet, this paper analyzes both benefits generated by Oklahoma Mesonet information to the public and decision-makers and ripple effects (spreading amplified outcomes/implications) of those benefits in the short and long term. The paper further details ongoing and anticipated Oklahoma Mesonet innovations as a response to changing needs for weather-related information over time, especially as a result of technological developments and weather variability.

Importance of weather monitoring for agricultural decision‐making – an exploratory behavioral study for Oklahoma Mesonet

“…Farmers who accrued 'neither significant or insignificant' (3), 'somewhat insignificant' (2) or 'very insignificant' (1) losses, estimated the value of Mesonet information and its contribution to improved farm profitability at 6.5/10. At the same time, farmers with 'very significant' (5) and 'somewhat significant' (4) weather-related losses estimated Mesonet contribution to farm profitability significantly higher (8/10). The median of 8 is the same for both categories, while the number of farmers with relatively low losses is larger (22 farmers out of 24 respondents).…”

“…Farmers' ability to respond to weather extremes, or prepare for their impact to optimize application of production factors, has been facilitated by the Oklahoma Mesonet . The Oklahoma Mesonet is a statewide weather monitoring network of 121 automated stations (with at least one station in each of the 77 counties).…”

“…4 Farmers' ability to respond to weather extremes, or prepare for their impact to optimize application of production factors, has been facilitated by the Oklahoma Mesonet. 5 The Oklahoma Mesonet is a statewide weather monitoring network of 121 automated stations (with at least one station in each of the 77 counties). Each station collects atmospheric data (such as air temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind speed, and solar radiation) every 5 min, as well as soil temperature data every 15 min, and soil moisture data every 30 min.…”

The Oklahoma Mesonet: A Pilot Study of Environmental Sensor Data Citations

“…Examples of Mesonet data users include emergency and public safety personnel, other state and local government agencies, aviation and other transportation firms, farmers, ranchers, construction firms, water experts, weather forecasters, and a variety of others vitally interested in Oklahoma's severe storms, dry line movements, soil moisture, drought conditions, heat impact, and other weather-related phenomena (Ziolkowska et al 2017).…”

A Technical Overview of the Kentucky Mesonet

“…At the same time, the need for high-quality data in near-real time to support applications at mesoscale has become more pressing for a wide variety of users and decision-makers. Given this situation, combined with better understanding of socioeconomic relevance and the value of accurate and timely weather and climate information (Ziolkowska et al 2017), various entities at the national and subnational levels have attempted to improve and/or develop their own weather and climate monitoring networks to address their decision-making needs (e.g., Hubbard et al 1983;Meyer and Hubbard 1992;Brock et al 1995;Tucker 1997;Brown and Hubbard 2001;Horel et al 2002).…”