UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Keystone Mesonet and Alerting System — a one-stop shop for weather information that provides Pennsylvania’s emergency management personnel and the public with real-time updates on weather conditions and threats — will continue and expand thanks to a new $3.5 million grant.
Established by a partnership of Penn State meteorologists and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) in 2018, the program received the five-year continuation grant from PEMA. The funding will allow the team to maintain and enhance the Keystone Mesonet website domain, add new map layering capabilities and weather data, expand public access to weather information, improve severe weather warning lead times and situational awareness for first responders, and maintain and enhance Penn State-owned weather monitoring stations known as the Pennsylvania Environmental Monitoring Network, or PEMN.
“While networks like the National Weather Service’s ASOS network provide weather data every hour to as frequent as every five minutes, our Mesonet network serves as an in-depth weather and climate monitoring system with more densely packed stations, collecting data every minute of every day across the state,” said Kyle Imhoff, assistant research professor of meteorology and atmospheric science and Pennsylvania state climatologist, who serves as project manager of Keystone Mesonet.
Rather than visiting multiple websites to get weather and climate information, users can visit the Keystone Mesonet to view a collection of weather data from over 200 publicly available observation stations owned by a variety of agencies, such as the state Department of Environmental Protection, the state Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, among others, Imhoff explained. Each collection of sites can be viewed individually or together using toggle functions on the Mesonet map.
“The Keystone Mesonet is sort of the ‘Google Maps’ version of displaying all station data,” Imhoff said. “It has added layers, like radar, National Weather Service watches and warnings, or aerial imagery to give users as detailed a view as they need to get current weather information. Everything is freely available to use.”
In addition to standard weather information provided by other weather networks, the PEMN sites managed by Penn State measure supplemental data, such as soil moisture levels, soil temperatures, solar radiation and snowfall that could be useful to meteorology and climate research, particularly as more data is acquired over a long period of time. Forty-eight stations were installed by Penn State meteorology faculty and staff on Penn State Commonwealth Campuses, public parks and public school district lands over the last few years, with two final sites slated to be installed by spring.
The team also implemented radar data provided by a recent partnership with weather technology company Climavision, which focuses its data collection on areas not well-sampled by existing National Weather Service radar sites.
Collectively, Imhoff said, Keystone Mesonet provides a valuable resource to first responders and emergency managers: email-based weather alerts utilize all available data sources integrated into the Keystone Mesonet system.
“In assessing the impacts of a weather-related emergency, emergency managers can analyze raw data and metrics of a weather emergency after the fact to support future public warnings and reduce the risk of injuries, loss of life and property damage,” Imhoff said.
Additionally, as part of its public-facing mission, Keystone Mesonet provides an accessible educational portal that provides free materials, lesson plans and resources on weather-related curriculum for teachers of kindergarten thorough 12th grade based on state educational standards.
“One of the most rewarding aspects of building the PEMN has been adding weather stations across Northern Pennsylvania and other areas where observations have historically been sparse,” said Scott Richardson, research professor of meteorology and atmospheric science and co-investigator on the grant. “Having stable, long-term funding is incredibly important, not only for expanding the network but for ensuring that these stations continue providing reliable weather and climate data for communities throughout the commonwealth for years to come.”
In addition to Imhoff and Richardson, the co-investigators on the grant include Stephen Crawford, research assistant of meteorology and atmospheric science and Arthur Person, associate research professor of meteorology and atmospheric science. Brandon Forsythe, assistant research professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, joined the team this fall.