computer science

Oklahoma Mesonet

Oklahoma Mesonet is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oklahoma Mesonet rather than just read about it. In short: The Oklahoma Mesonet is a network of environmental monitoring stations designed to measure the environment at the size and duration of mesoscale weather events. The phrase "mesonet" is a portmanteau of the words mesoscale and network.

Key takeaways

Oklahoma Mesonet belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oklahoma Mesonet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oklahoma Mesonet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Oklahoma Mesonet is a network of environmental monitoring stations designed to measure the environment at the size and duration of mesoscale weather events. The phrase "mesonet" is a portmanteau of the words mesoscale and network. The network consists of 120 automated stations covering Oklahoma and each of Oklahoma's counties has at least one station. At each site, the environment is measured by a set of instruments located on or near a 10-meter (33 ft)-tall tower. The measurements are packaged into “observations” and transmitted to a central facility every 5 minutes, 24 hours per day, every day of the year. Oklahoma Mesonet is a cooperative venture between Oklahoma State University (OSU) and the University of Oklahoma (OU) and is supported by the taxpayers of Oklahoma. It is headquartered at the National Weather Center (NWC) on the OU campus. Observations are available free of charge to the public.

Background According to the Tulsa World, creation of the Oklahoma Mesonet resulted from the inability of emergency management officials to plan for the May 26–27, 1984 flood that killed 14 people in the Tulsa area. The 1984 flood demonstrated that emergency managers could not receive accurate and adequate data quickly enough about the progress of flooding from airport radars, updated hourly. The University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University collaborated with the Climatological Survey and other public and private agencies to create the Oklahoma Mesonet. This system collects weather information (e.g., wind speed, rainfall, temperature) every 5 minutes from 121 Mesonet stations throughout Oklahoma. Emergency planners can now monitor up-to-date weather information in advance of the arrival of an approaching storm. The article quoted an official of the Tulsa Area Emergency Management as saying that his staff uses the Oklahoma Mesonet every day.

Products

The Oklahoma Mesonet produces multiple weather products for public consumption and download: these include maps of all of the meteorological variables updated every five minutes to show the latest observations and time series plots of a station (called meteograms) over a given period of time. Historical data can be plotted using the Oklahoma Mesonet's Long Term Average tools.

See also Flooding and flood control in Tulsa

References

External links Mesonet.org Oklahoma Mesonet Oral History Project

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oklahoma Mesonet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oklahoma Mesonet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oklahoma Mesonet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oklahoma Mesonet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oklahoma Mesonet

In research: Oklahoma Mesonet appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oklahoma Mesonet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oklahoma Mesonet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1994 establishments in Oklahoma, Meteorological data and networks, Organizations based in Oklahoma, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oklahoma Mesonet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oklahoma Mesonet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oklahoma Mesonet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oklahoma Mesonet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oklahoma Mesonet in simple terms?

Why does Oklahoma Mesonet matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oklahoma Mesonet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oklahoma Mesonet.