The National Weather Service's Cooperative Observation Program is undergoing a major reconstruction.  The program currently consists of 10,000 Cooperative Observers, and future plans will place a new automated sensor in grids every 20 square miles throughout the United States.  This new system will be linked to Weather Forecast Offices on a real time basis, and this will allow the weather information to be available to the offices and public as needed.  Currently, this information is provided only on a daily or event-driven basis.

Louisiana has begun a site survey of locations that will be installed as soon as funds and resources become available.  The National Weather Service, the Southern Regional Climate Center at LSU, and LSU officials have initiated efforts to include different government and private agencies in the selection of sites and parameters of information to be observed.  Coordination of these meetings has been made possible by the efforts of Kevin Robbins of the Climate Center.  In addition, these various Louisiana and federal agencies are combining resources for data gathering and to standardize the equipment sites.

The new sites will have different sensor configurations that will apply to the needs of the various participating agencies.  For instance, minimal sites will have only maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation sensors, while fully configured arrangements may include solar radiation, wind speed and direction, soil temperature, current weather, maximum and minimum temperature, and precipitation sensors. 

The combined efforts of these state and federal agencies will contribute greatly to reducing the cost of implementation, operation, and maintenance of the equipment as well as minimizing the unnecessary duplication of information by delivering the appropriate data to the correct agencies.  Some of the current cooperative sites will not meet the new site standards due to surrounding development or exposure, but these sites will continue as Legacy sites and play a role in maintaining historical records.  Many new sites will need to be established to meet these standards and fulfill the various needs of the agencies and maintain spatial distribution.

The entire program will take many years and a great deal of money to complete, but it is a giant step forward towards standardizing, modernizing, and combining some state and federal agencies.  This new cooperative network will enhance the oldest and most extensive climate record database in the world, thus aiding industry, research and development, and weather safety aspects for the entire country.