The US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) may have a continuing requirement for meteorological observation data derived from existing surface-based observing networks called “mesonets”. These meteorological observations are required to fill the gaps in the Nation’s meteorological, hydrologic and related environmental observing capabilities to enable significantly improved prediction of high-impact, local-scale weather events.

In 2008, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released Observing Weather and Climate From the Ground Up: A Nationwide Network of Networks. This NAS report provides a framework for filling gaps in the Federal Government’s meteorological, hydrologic and related environmental observing capabilities, to enable significantly improved forecasts and warnings for high-impact, local-scale weather events. The framework specifies that NWS and the Federal Government should effectively leverage existing observing networks that are owned and operated by non-Federal parties (e.g., the states, academia, and the private sector), in addition to deploying new Federal systems. NAS has since released additional reports, including When Weather Matters: Science and Services to Meet Critical Societal Needs, and Urban Meteorology: Forecasting, Monitoring, and Meeting User’s Needs, which endorse the key observing systems concepts and recommendations of From the Ground Up. In response to the NAS, the National Weather Service (NWS) began the National Mesonet Program (NMP) in Fiscal Year 2009.

The program initially served as a mechanism for purchasing data from a small number of non-Federal surface observing networks (“mesonets”) located mostly in the south-central U.S. The NMP has since evolved into NWS’s primary program for purchasing non-Federal data from a wide variety of observing networks, including surface mesonets operating in all 50 states, as well as data from networks that provide observations of wind, temperature, moisture, and related quantities, throughout the vertical extent of the atmosphere. With the ongoing expansion to new types of observing systems and platforms, the principal objective of the NMP is to contribute significantly to community efforts to implement key recommendations contained in the aforementioned NAS reports and build a comprehensive “Network of Networks.”

Scope of work:

• The NWS seeks commercial pathways analogous to MADIS for meeting data-related requirements heretofore met by interfacing with and delivering data to the federal MADIS system.  Such analogous pathways should serve key NWS applications that have been highly dependent on the federal MADIS system including, but not necessarily limited to, the Advanced Weather Information Processing System (AWIPS) and the Multi-Radar Multi Sensor System (MRMS).  Analogous commercial pathways are sought to provide the pathways heretofore provided by the federal MADIS, processing and providing data streams to the NWS Gateway, and to downstream applications highly reliant on nonfederal data streams.