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January 16, 2007
Texas Tech Wind Engineering Prepares to Install 50th Mesonet Station
The new transmitter will provide detailed weather information to Childress county, resulting in more accurate forcasts.
Written by Cory Chandler
The West Texas Mesonet Group is installing a new station – the project’s 50th – to provide a rich array of meteorological data to residents of Childress County.
The stations, implemented through partnerships between Texas Tech University and serviced communities, calculate wind speed, temperature, humidity, precipitation and other data in five-minute cycles. The information, used by farmers, researchers, meteorologists and local media, should benefit the 7,000-person, largely agricultural community and surrounding county.
Mesonet’s first station came online at Reese Technology Center in June of 2000. The project has since expanded to cover a region spanning 33 counties from Pampa to Andrews.
“We now have a station in every county on the South Plains, which goes a long way toward fulfilling our objective,” said Mesonet operations manager Wes Burgett.
Childress also will soon benefit from a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radio transmitter. The transmitter will provide National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts and warnings to as many as 17 counties in both Texas and Oklahoma, originating from the NWS Weather Forecast Offices in Lubbock, Amarillo and Norman, Okla.
Contact
Wes Burgett, operations manager, Mesonet, Texas Tech University, can be reached at (806) 885-4644, ext. 223.
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Visit the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center Web site and the West Texas Mesonet Group Web site
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