A network of fixed, portable, or mobile land stations for automated, real-time monitoring at the mesoscale. Observations include temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind, solar radiation, and often others such as soil temperature, snow depth, all-weather precipitation, barometric pressure, vertical temperature difference, and even photos. Observations are typically collected at subhourly intervals from levels of 1 m below ground to 10 m above ground level from stations spaced tens of kilometers apart or less. Mesonets use professional station siting, equipment, and maintenance/calibration to ensure data are suitable for research and climatology.
American Association of State Climatologists, 2019: Recommendations and Best Practices for Mesonets. Annual Meeting of the AASC, Santa Rosa, CA, 37 pp, https://stateclimate.org/best-practices/.
Fiebrich, C. A., and Coauthors, 2020: Toward the standardization of mesoscale meteorological networks. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 17, 2033–2049, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0078.1.
Term edited 22 December 2023.
