Severe Weather

During the Spring and Winter months, Oklahoma often experiences various types of severe weather which may effect the Campus Community.

The OU Police Department has access to the MESONET, (which is a conjunction of the words "mesoscale" (meaning intermediate - scale: several miles to several hundred miles, and several minutes to many hours) and "network" (an interconnected system).

The Oklahoma Mesonet is a system designed to measure and detect phenomena that are significant on intermediate space and time scales. The system consists of 108+ automated observing stations that continuously monitor a number of weather, and soil parameters. The central processing site, or Base Station, is in the Oklahoma Climatological Survey Building located on the OU Norman Campus, and information is received over the OLETS (Oklahoma Law Enforcement Teletype System).

The system allows a Police Communications Specialist to choose one of 9 areas statewide to gather specific data on weather conditions. In addition, the Emergency Management Office obtains weather updates from the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma via the Internet, as well as from a paging system generated by the Oklahoma County Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

The Office of Emergency Management also monitors Alert Weather Radio, and TV. The aforementioned information is compiled, and provided to callers on the OU Police and Weather Line - 271-6499.

The information provided over this line, tells the caller about snow, ice and road conditions on campus during the Winter months, and any severe weather that may effect the Health Sciences Center Campus during the Spring and Fall months. A daily weather statement is also provided on the weather line.

The Campus e-mail System is used during normal working hours, to provide information to each Campus Building Coordinator of impending severe weather that would, or could, effect the community. Building Coordinators (or their alternates), should in turn, promulgate this information to their respective building occupants.

LINKS:

• MESONET