Ticker for November 5, 1999

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
November 5, 1999   November 5, 1999   November 5, 1999   November 5, 1999


TULLAHASSEE Mesonet Station Moves to PORTER

After almost seven years of service near Tullahassee, Mesonet station
number 96 (TULL) has been retired and replaced by Mesonet station
number 118 (PORT), near Porter.  The new station operates in prime
Oklahoma peach country, about seven miles west of the old location.

The new station location is actually nearer to the community of
Clarksville, on the old M-K-T line.  But the identifier CLAR is
already in use (Claremore), which probably saved Ticker readers from
a bunch of dumb "Last Train to Clarksville" references.

The addition of the Porter station move gives the network stations
at both Porter and Retrop.  The southwest Oklahoma community of Retrop
was settled in 1897 near Hobart.  The postmaster, Mr. Porter (the Ticker
assumes he was a bit of a narcissist), applied for the name of "Porter".
Porter was already taken, so it was spelled backwards, and the town
became known as Retrop.

The move may affect some real-time Mesonet products in the short term
(a red "missing" dot is indicated at TULL in some maps), but should
not affect overall data delivery.

New Porter Station Information

Here's an overview of the vital stats for the new Porter station:

Station:     118
Station ID:  PORT
Latitude:    35 49' 33" N
Longitude:   95 33' 36" W
Elevation:   193 m (633 ft)


Goodbye, Old Friend

Tullahassee joins Alva (ALVA) and Grandfield (GRAN) as the third retired
Mesonet station.  ALVA and GRAN were replaced with ALV2 and GRA2,
respectively.

TULL was born on January 21, 1993.  One of the first operational
Oklahoma Mesonet stations, it has seen a major summer drought, several
tropical systems and plenty of day-to-day weather phenomena.  Its
service record is exemplary: 99.7% of more than 700,000 observations
are listed as high-quality.

The highlight of TULL's career was a ten-day span in Sepember 1998.
On the 4th, the station observed its warmest temperature on record
(108.5 F), on the heels of the drought of 1998.  Nine days later,
the remnants of Tropical Storm Frances dumped 5.70 inches of rain on the
site, its greatest one-day total.  This event effectively ended one of
the costliest droughts in the region's history.

TULL's darkest moment occurred shortly after sunset on March 28, 1998,
when the station was vandalized and many of its instruments were stolen.
The station was disabled for eleven days before returning to action with
new equipment.

The station plot has been returned to its original condition in rural
Wagoner County.

The Ticker would like to thank the Tullahassee station for its service
and wish it a happy retirement.