The University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM) will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first installation of the Louisiana State Mesonet, an interconnected network of instrumented weather monitoring stations. The ceremony will be held on the ULM campus at the mesonet site located next to University Park at 4807 Bon Aire Dr. Parking will be available in the gravel parking lot next to the park.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony will feature special guest speaker Louisiana District 5 U.S. Representative Julia Letlow, as well as representatives from the university.
The Louisiana State Mesonet project received $2,000,000 in funding in January 2023 thanks to a community project request sponsored by Representative Letlow. The Louisiana State Mesonet, managed by ULM, will initially include 50 weather stations installed in weather data gaps across the state of Louisiana. This network measures temperature, humidity, pressure, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, precipitation, and soil conditions. The mesonet and its data will be used for critical weather and climate monitoring that will affect sectors such as severe and hazardous weather forecasting, homeland security and emergency management, aviation, energy and renewables, agriculture, transportation, and education.