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Meteorology Facilities and Equipment

Students have ready access to excellent equipment and facilities found in the Boyd Science Center.

Facilities

• Multi-instrumented rooftop weather observation station
• Highly-advanced weather center including a state-of-the-art electronic map wall
• Weather technology lab and classroom
• Observational equipment such as a portable GPS-radiosonde system, a portabl micrometeorological measurement platform, and a fully instrumented Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS).

Computer Resources

Computer equipment including:

• 24 Pentium IV 3 GHz workstations with 20" LCD monitors
• An electronic map wall consisting 32 19" LCD monitors and 2 large plasma displays
• Two Dell PowerEdge 6650 servers with quad Pentium IV 2 GHz processors and a combined total of nearly 2 Terrabytes of data storage
• A Dell PowerEdge 2300 server with dual Pentium IV 1 GHz processors

In addition, weather graphics and/or text data are also available from numerous other computers and terminals liberally spread throughout the campus in academic buildings, dorms, student apartments, etc. All systems have fast Internet access.

One of only a handful of schools with this capability, Plymouth State receives weather data from a full four-channel NOAAPORT satellite system. We can also receive data from the Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system as a backup and have an Internet II link.

As a beta test site, the program uses the NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory FX-Net package for visualization of meteorological data that provides tools similar to that found in National Weather Service Forecast Offices (one of few schools in the country to have this capability). The program also uses other weather packages found at most universities, such as IDV, GEMPAK, McIDAS and WXP.