MesoWest Sunset: December 31, 2026
Announcement: January 1, 2026

MesoWest software has been providing access to environmental data in the public domain to millions of users during the past 29 years. MesoWest has been relied upon by the operational, educational, and research sectors of the weather enterprise and also from the general public and users with diverse needs for environmental data. Due to my retirement as MesoWest Director at the end of 2026 and that maintaining the legacy MesoWest software is increasingly difficult, we encourage MesoWest users to transition as soon as possible to the software available from Synoptic Data, a Public Benefit Corporation. MesoWest software already relies on Synoptic’s api services. If critical servers fail, it is possible, but unlikely, that MesoWest may sunset earlier than December 2026. It is also possible that some MesoWest software features will continue to be supported at the University of Utah beyond 2026, particularly for observations within Utah and surrounding states.

Synoptic Data provides viewer tools and api services to download environmental data from many more sources than those available presently from MesoWest. See Mesowest users - Synoptic Data for more information about Synoptic’s capabilities. The transition from MesoWest to Synoptic is a natural one. As a University of Utah startup, the University and many of the early members of the MesoWest team are shareholders in Synoptic. Several former MesoWest developers are Synoptic employees and I am on its Board and a shareholder, but not involved in Synoptic’s day-to-day operations.

The development and maintenance of MesoWest would not have been possible without the efforts of many students, staff, and faculty in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and individuals in the Center for High Performance Computing. I also would like to acknowledge the funding over the years to operate and maintain MesoWest software received from the National Weather Service, Synoptic Data, Utah Department of Transportation, Bureau of Land Management, Great Lakes Fire and Fuels Compact, and other federal and state agencies.

I remain a strong proponent for environmental data in the public domain to be accessible widely. Synoptic continues that tradition. However, recognize that Synoptic bears substantive costs to maintain reliable cloud-based databases and servers beyond what MesoWest has offered over the years.

Feel free to send inquiries about MesoWest’s sunset plans directly to me (john.horel@utah.edu) or to atmos-mesowest@lists.utah.edu. We have plenty underway during 2026 to keep the remaining MesoWest team occupied. Reach out to Synoptic if there are MesoWest features you rely on that may not be immediately apparent through their services.

John Horel Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Utah