About OK-First

OK-First is an outreach program of the Oklahoma Mesonet that provides Oklahoma’s public safety community with weather education and access to critical real-time weather data. Since beginning classes in 1997, OK-First has trained more than 2,000 public safety officials and currently has more than 900 active members participating in the program. OK-First operates with financial support from the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety and is operated by the Oklahoma Mesonet. OK-First training and data are provided at no cost to eligible participants in Oklahoma and counties bordering the state.

For more information on OK-First, please visit the following sections.

What's the History behind the name OK-First?

OK-First was launched in 1996 as part of a $549,910 telecommunications infrastructure grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. OK-First is the acronym from the title of the grant:

OKlahoma's
First-response
Information
Resource
System using
Telecommunications.

The name stuck and has been used ever since.