- 17: DAILY, Site MISS, Tue 21-Apr-2009 19:10:56 GMT, St Louis University Visit
MISS visited St Louis University on April 14th and 15th on the way back to Colorado from EDUCT.
The principal contact at the University was Prof Bob Pasken.
MISS was sited at the Theresa event parking lot, approx 80m west of the intersection of Washington Ave and Josephine Baker Blvd, about a block north of the main campus. Site is a large parking lot, approx 100m by 100m with many nearby buidings and power lines.
Lat 38.64N Lon 90.23W Trailer orientated at approx 30 degrees.
Surface met (WXT) and wind profiler were operated for brief periods.
Weather was clear, cool, and calm. Profiler seeing lots of clutter with a weak atmospheric signal to about 1km.
14th April - running for about 2 hours from 17Z.
Visits by meteorology and engineering classes and their instructors.
15th April - running for about an hour from 21Z.
Visits by attendees at a regional mesonet meeting being hosted by the univerisity.
- 16: DAILY, Site MISS, Sat 11-Apr-2009 15:40:32 GMT, EDUCT Sat April 11
EDUCT Sat April 11
Cloudy and cool with light rain. Light variable winds.
One sounding at 14 Z - demo and tour for students (Mountain Met class)
System running from about 13Z for around two hours.
END of PROJECT
- 15: DAILY, Site MISS, Fri 10-Apr-2009 19:23:38 GMT, EDUCT Fri April 10
EDUCT Fri April 10
Cloudy, mainly high cloud in morning, with a few mid level clouds developing during the day. Light winds. Rain and thunderstorms were forecast but did not develop. Profiler saw occasional brief precip aloft from late morning; a few drops reached the surface around 20Z. Brief sunny intervals later.
Sounding at 20Z. Demostration for graduate students and visitors.
System operating from about 12Z (8am) to 21Z (5pm).
- 14: DAILY, Site MISS, Thu 09-Apr-2009 20:09:22 GMT, EDUCT Thurs April 9
EDUCT Thurs April 9
Fine sunny day with light westerlies. Scattered cloud from late morning, clearing somewhat during afternoon.
Four soundings:
11Z (7am): GAUS sounding okay. Stephan attached one of his GRAW sondes to his car and drove up to his Pinnacles reseach station, and across to Sperryville a few times. Clear and cold, strong low level inversion (about 8C at 100m).
14Z (10am): Dual sounding, GAUS Vaisala and GRAW sondes. GRAW sonde dangling by half meter string from bottom of Vaisala sonde. GRAW sonde had fewer GPS signal problems doing it this way (rather than duct aping the sondes together). Both systems worked well. Widely scattered cloud.
1730Z (1:30pm): GAUS sonde from MISS, and Stephan launched a GRAW sonde from his Pinnacles lab at 1745Z (using a 100g balloon). Both sondes went well, although the GRAW lost signal at 550mb and the GAUS at 200mb (winds may have blown sonde behind nearby mountain). Partly cloudy.
20Z (4pm): GAUS sonde only. Widely scattered cloud. Good flight, went to 70mb.
Visited Pinnacles lab and also possible future sites at Arrowhead Lake and Luray airport (where an AWOS and ceilometer will be installed shortly).
System running from about 1030Z (6:30am) to 21Z (5pm).
- 13: DAILY, Site MISS, Wed 08-Apr-2009 15:20:53 GMT, EDUCT Wed April 8
EDUCT April 8
Fine and cool with westerly breeze. Variable clouds, scattered high clouds early, increasing low clouds by late morning.
Two soundings:
1140Z Early morning sounding. Comparison with Stephan's GRAW rradiosonde - duct taped GRAW sonde to our Vaisala sonde. Unfortunately they had a computer problem and recorded no data. Five students from Stephan's mountain met class came to watch the sounding and get a tour of MISS.
1430Z Mid-morning sounding. Another comparison sounding with the GRAW sonde - again duct taped the sondes together. This time both systems worked, although the GRAW system lost signal about 10 minute into the flight. Vaisala okay until about 350mb (around 8km) then it lost signal. GAUS software wouldn't do a normal quit (although wasn't locked up). CPU was running at 99% (46MB mem) so ran into some looping issue. CtrlAtDel to kill. Raw data okay, but data not finalized so didn't Zeb ingest.
18Z Stepan launched a GRAW sonde - this time it worked well, running for approx an hour. Two graduate students came for the launch and a tour of MISS.
The research resource manager for the park also came for a tour later in the day.
System running today from about 1030Z to 2030Z.
- 12: DAILY, Site MISS, Tue 07-Apr-2009 17:52:41 GMT, EDUCT Tue April 7
EDUCT Tue April 7th.
Cool, cloudy with westerlies. Occasional light snow flurries. Profiler seeing more snow aloft. Ceilometer showing solid cloud base at between 5 and 7 k feet.
Demonstration sounding and facility tour for Luray High School 9th grade class.
37 students and teacher visited for about 2 hours.
Sounding launched about 13Z.
1510Z moved MISS about 10 meters and re-orientated about 40 degrees to reduce clutter. A maintenance shed and nearby trees now better shields us from clutter at 2 to 3 km range. Kept system running during the repositioning, which took about 5 minutes. Trailer now level. Adjusted profiler parameter files and restarted about 1525Z. Trailer now orientated to 312 degrees and Y38 beam at 42 degrees. Clutter is significantly reduced, although we are still seeing some at about 800m and 2km.
System running from about 12Z to 18Z.
- 11: IMPORTANT, Site MISS, Tue 07-Apr-2009 17:42:38 GMT, EDUCT Educational Project in Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
EDUCT
MISS in Shenandoah National Park for the EDUCT Educational Project
with the University of Virginia (PI Dr Stephan De Wekker).
We will be operating MISS here for one week, observing boundary layer development, releasing soundings and conducting educational activities.
Initally setup at the National Park headquarters, may be moving to nearby Luray airort, depending on conditions. Park HQ site is on a small parking lot on the north side of a grassy clearing about 100 m cross. The park maintenance facility is just to our north. There is power nearby, however we are running off our generator. The area is surrounded by 20m trees.
MISS trailer orientated at 350 degrees with Y38 beam at 80 degrees. Trailer slightly sloping to southeast. Significant clutter at 2 to 3 km, probably from a mountain to the northeast. Will reposition trailer tomorrow when some cars on the lot should have moved.
Stephan has set-up a 2m met tower with sonics about 35m south from MISS in the middle of the grass clearing.
System running for testing from about 16Z to 20Z today (April 6). Note clock correction made to profiler at 1825Z (had been 1421Z) and ceilometer PC (had been 12:25 MDT).
- 10: DAILY, Site MISS, Wed 11-Mar-2009 15:22:40 GMT, End of Pre-PLOWS
Due to weather conditions or lack there of the MISS system was called down on Monday 3-9-09.
- 9: DAILY, Site MISS, Sun 08-Mar-2009 02:43:57 GMT, IOP 4 03092009 z
IOP 4 is taking place in Walcott IA. The MISS system is operating in a truck stop just off I-80. All systems started up without any problems.This surprised me considering the roughness of some of the roads we have been on.
Trailer leveling - front to back .2 degrees side to side .9 degrees
Lat 41.37 n
lon 90.47 w
alt 801 ft
Profiler amp power output 1.859
Beams:
yv 22 5 degrees
xv 21 95 degrees
y 38 5 degrees
y 26 185 degrees
x 25 95 dgrees
x 37 275 degrees
Soundings are currently planned for every 2 hours from 0z on the 8th until 0z of the 9th. AS of this time two soundings have been made neither had any problems.
Currently there is little to no rain [03z].It has rained very hard at times. The MIPS crew are carrying 4 extra helium cylinders for us as we maybe doing another IOP before returning to Champaign Ill.
After 10pm local time there were some periods with thunder and lighting.
Last sounding of IOP was at 20z.All sounding went smoothly.
- 8: DAILY, Site MISS, Tue 03-Mar-2009 18:08:47 GMT, Daily Report Tuesday Mar 3
Ran system for approx 4 hours today to give anyone who needed to the chance to log in to the various computer systems.
Filled the generator tank. Also cut a distribution from the profiler computer to be installed on the systems still in Boulder.This afternoon will try to find mudflaps for the truck to redused the amount of muck being thrown up onto the MISS trailer.
Kurt should arrive this evening to replace Bill.
Unless requested the system will not be run for a couple of days.
- 7: DAILY, Site MISS, Sun 01-Mar-2009 19:18:59 GMT, Daily Report Sun Mar 1
Daily Report Sun Mar 1
Testing and maintenance day. Set-up some parameter files on the profiler so swiching a few times between various modes.
Weather, cold and windy (northerlies). Partly sunny this morning, then clouding over with light flurries in the afternoon.
Swapped out one helium cyclinder, now have 3 full cyclinders back on MISS.
Set-up two parameter files on the profiler:
PLOWS-IOP.PAR (& RADAR.PAR):
IPP 770 PW 700 CODE 4
NHGTS 75 DELAY 2700 SPACE 700 COHAV 60 SPECAV 26 NPTS 128
SCALE 19.5 M/S DEWLL 20S HGT .24 - 8.01 KM IPP 9.91 KM PLUSE 105
CLEAR-AIR.PAR :
IPP 40 PW 700 CODE 4
NHGTS 42 DELY 2700 SPACE 700 COHAV 180 SPECAV 26 NPTS 128
SCALE 11.4 M/S DWELL 28S HGT .24 - 4.55 KM IPP 5.43 KM PLUS 105
Generally during IOPs we will use the PLOWS-IOP.PAR set to fairly closely match Kevin Knupp's settings on the MIPS system. We'll mainly just use the CLEAR-AIR.PAR for testing during clear weather.
Final amp current was 3.20 A for the clear-air mode and 1.83 for the plows-iop mode.
Bill is leaving tomorrow to be replaced by Kurt on Tuesday.
Weather continues to look clear for the next few days. Bob Rauber says the next possible IOP is next Friday or Saturday - currently models indicate it may be north again, perhaps around Green Bay WI. After that, models suggest a changed weather pattern with IOPs every few days.
- 6: DAILY, Site MISS, Sat 28-Feb-2009 22:02:55 GMT, Daily Report Sat Feb 28
Daily Report Sat Feb 28
Testing day at Champaign Airport.
No log yesterday as we spent the whole day driving back from Tomah WI after IOP 3. so we didn't turn on the system.
Today weather fine, partly cloudy with cold northerlies.
MISS is now parked in the staff parking lot just east of the airport control tower. It is orientated exactly east-west (front of trailer - beam "x37") pointed due east.
To fix the samba issue with the transfer of profiler par files, we restored the system on the profiler PC from a Ghost backup Lou did this week from before the virus scanner "fixed" the system (backing up the data to CD and USB stick beforehand). After the restore, we copied back the data files from IOP 3 and the popforwindows startup program from the CD so that the program should be virus free.
Ran the surface met and profiler briefly this afternoon for testing.
Afterwards tested Gary's modified "Copy spc" icon which copies the spc files from the profiler pc and runs NIMA then transfers the data back to Boulder. It did the first two steps okay, but gave a "Ping to EOL failed" message so did manual transfer using the datasend command.
A period of clear weather has set in and the next IOP is probably not until later in the week (Thursday or Friday).
- 5: DAILY, Site MISS, Fri 27-Feb-2009 00:10:12 GMT, Daily Reprort Thu Feb 26 IOP 3
Daily Report for Thurs Feb 26
IOP 3
Sited at Tomah WI for IOP 3 (IOPs 1 & 2 occurred before MISS arrived).
Hotel Super 8 parking lot north-west corner behind the adjacent restaurant.
Location 44d 1.28m N, 90d 29.605m W, 300 metres.
Trailer orientated to 255 degrees.
Weather, just high cloud on arrival (around 18Z), light grappel to start with, then snow, freezibg rain, and sheet. Moderate to heavy snow later. The event lasted about four hours and a bit over an inch of snow accumulated.
Profiler saw very good signals in the snow, with echo tops around 6km.
There was a bright band for a while 21Z - 22Z, surprizingly high at 1.5 - 2km given the snow and sheet at the surface, but the 21Z sounding did show an inversion with a warm layer at about 2km.
Launched 3 soundings 19Z, 21Z and 0Z.
First sounding lost signal at 650mb for reasons unclear (may have been a mechanical issue with the ties holding the balloon).
Second sounding went up into heavy snow and actually dropped for a brief period due to icing, but eventually went to 100mb okay.
Third sounding soon after snow finished, no problems.
The drive up was rather long - we left Champaign around 4pm (as the IOP wasn't declared until 2pm) and stayed in Rockford overnight, then drove from there this morning. Rather a slow drive because the highways were a little rough and the MISS trailer bounced around more than expected.
Had a minor network issue on start-up: the data manager computer couldn't transfer the radar parameters files from the profiler PC so we couldn't use the parameter setup script. Had to enter orientation and lat/lon etc into the profiler manualy. Data transfer the other way (with rsync) worked fine so it must have been a samba issue rather than a network problem. Suspect the virus scanner yesterday upset some of the internet ports.
Data archiving and transfer back to Boulder seems to be working fine.
- 4: DAILY, Site , Tue 24-Feb-2009 21:10:57 GMT, Pre_PLOWS Daily Report Tues Feb 24
Daily Report Tues Feb 24
Continuing pre-deployment testing at Champaign Airport (CMI).
Equipment running intermittantly only during this phase.
Weather remains clear, cold and dry, with winds switching around to southerly (from northerly yesterday).
Daily weather briefing at U of I indicates first possible IOP on Thursday. It appears to be mainly a frontal passage rather than the cyclones they are interested in, so it won't be a full IOP with the Alabama crew. The location is likely to be just south of Chicago and will involve only MISS.
An issue occurred with the profiler PC. After a suspect disk was found by CDS back in Boulder, we ran a virus scan and found the FunLove virus in the popforwindowsstartup program. The scanner cleaned it up and testing shows that profiler operations were not affected.
Otherwise all systems appear to working well.
- 3: DAILY, Site MISS, Tue 24-Feb-2009 20:52:31 GMT, Pre-PLOWS Set-Up
PRE-PLOWS
MISS Currently parked at Champaign-Urbana Airport waiting first deployment.
Intermittant operation to test equipment. Currently running on generator so will only be running the system for tests.
Surface met is using a WXT mounted on trailer. All readings seem to be consistent with airport AWS measurements.
Profiler working okay - fairly low level of clutter and little interference at this site. Cold and dry so echoes aren't strong but the winds consistent with surface met.
Profiler antenna set-up with X37 to front of trailer, X25 to back, Y38 to right, and Y26 to left (reverse of prev set-up). Pre-project testing in Boulder uesd
comparisons with ISS4, soundings, and surface met to verify operation.
Note that there is a Field Catalog for PLOWS - daily briefing reports from the PIs will appear on the catalog.
Initial Operations crew is Lou and Bill - thanks for Patti for driving the system up here from Boulder with Lou.
- 2: SOUNDING, Site UMBS, Tue 27-Jun-2000 13:01:25 GMT, Sounding Launch Log Template
=====================
CLASS LAUNCH LOG version:951116
=====================
=========>> Enter data after all colons (:) <<===========
1. Clone the original sounding log file.
2. Enter information before launch.
3. Enter post-termination data.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use arrows to navigate, NO CARRIAGE RET, except in comments + wx descriptions!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SITE INFO
---------
Site Name:
date yymmdd:
launch time UTC:
Sonde coef tape #:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MET INFO
-------- For Sonde
Pressure mb :
Temp C :
RH % :
For Surface Data
Pressure mb :
Temp C :
RH% :
Wind Spd m/s :
Wind Dir deg :
Pre-Launch Note conditions not observable by automatic systems
Weather Description ( visibility, sea state, cloud coverage and cloud type,
rain, virga, etc. )
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POST TERMINATION
----------------
Termination Pressure mb :
Termination Altitude km :
Reason for Termination :
Post-Termination Weather Description:
For Surface Data
Pressure mb :
Temp C :
RH % :
Wspd m/s :
Wdir deg :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENTS (data quality, unusual meteorolical features, launch problems, etc.)
--------
- 1: LOG, Site none, Tue 11-Apr-2000 15:53:29 GMT, Logbook created
initial log file /iss/home/iss/tklog.log created by USER iss