About
"Mesonet" is a portmanteau of the words "mesoscale" and "network".
In meteorology, "mesoscale" refers to weather events that range in size from about one kilometer to approximately 250 kilometers. Mesoscale events include thunderstorms, tornadoes, downbursts, and hailstorms; which can last from several minutes to several hours. Therefore, densely spaced weather observations are required to ensure that mesoscale weather events do not go undetected.
The Northern Mesonet Project (NMP), founded at in 2024 with the support of social impact fund , aims to better monitor severe convective storms, improve severe and extreme weather understanding and prediction, mitigate against harm to people and property, and investigate future implications due to climate change.
As climate patterns continue to evolve, the ability to observe and measure weather has become a critical necessity. This is particularly true of weather due to severe convective storms (SCS), which can include damaging hailstones, tornadoes, downbursts and flash floods. SCS may also produce extreme weather – weather that is climatologically rare in intensity, location or time of year. Documenting and analyzing such events offers invaluable insights into their causes, impacts, and potential future occurrences. Surface weather stations are a necessary technology for understanding SCS due to their unique capabilities. While weather radar effectively detects precipitation and wind patterns aloft, its limitation is its inability to capture crucial surface-level weather where it matters the most for people and property. Existing surface weather stations in Canada often have several known limitations that hinder their usefulness, particularly regarding highly localized SCS. In general, widely spaced stations often fail to capture highly localized SCS events.
To combat this, the goals of the Northern Mesonet Program are:
- To increase the spatial density of publicly available surface weather observations by creating , which is a central repository for existing networks (a network of networks) for real-time collection and dissemination of surface weather observations in Canada.
- To supplement existing surface weather stations with specialized high-density networks (STORM) for the dual purpose of evaluating new techniques and technologies and capturing SCS-driven weather events by using a high temporal resolution in underserviced areas prone to SCS.
Project Leadership
Greg Kopp
Dr. Greg Kopp is the Chair in Severe Storms Engineering, lead researcher in the Northern Mesonet Project, and a professor in 深夜福利站’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1989, a MEng from McMaster University in 1991 and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1995. His expertise and research relate to mitigating damage to structures during extreme wind storms such as tornadoes and hurricanes.
He works actively to implement research findings into practice, currently serving as Chair of the ASCE 49 Standards Committee on Wind Tunnel Testing For Buildings and other Structures, and as a member of various other Building Code committees. A former Canada Research Chair in Wind Engineering, he is also the lead researcher for the Three Little Pigs Project at The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes.
Connell Miller
Dr. Connell Miller is the Director of the Northern Mesonet Project, and an adjunct professor in 深夜福利站’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received a BESc in Civil Engineering from 深夜福利站 in 2015, and a PhD in Civil Engineering from 深夜福利站 in 2020. He is also the coordinator for the summer undergraduate internship program for the Canadian Severe Storms Lab. His expertise is in the field of remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), instrumentation, and full-scale experiments.
Dr. Miller's current research is focused on alternative methods of estimating wind speeds in tornadoes such as the simulation of debris trajectories of vehicles; as well as alternative methods for detecting tornadoes through remote sensing tools such as vegetation indices and synthetic aperture radar.
Project Partner and Founding Supporter
ImpactWX
NMP was founded in 2024 with support from the Toronto-based social impact fund ImpactWX. ImpactWX's mission is "to enable organizations who, through scientific understanding and public awareness, work to improve people's response and safety during severe weather events." This includes the integration of research and practice - for meteorology, engineering and human behavioral science in the NTP context. The support and partnership of ImpactWX has allowed scientific exploration that would otherwise not have been possible.
Canadian Mesonet Portal Developers
Thank you to the software engineering and computer science students from 深夜福利站 who were responsible for the creation, and continue to be responsible for the maintenance of the Canadian Mesonet Portal. Their names are listed below to provide proper attribution to them:
Collin TownFounding Developer |
Minh NguyenFounding Developer |
Daniel ButtDeveloper |
Kevin MankaDeveloper |
