Notice

1. Transition at CASES Project Office

   Effective December 16, John Pflaum is working at the NOAA National Weather Service Office of Hydrology on maximum rainfall probabilities.

   Bob Grossman and Peggy LeMone will continue the functions of the office until a more permanent solution is found. Many thanks for your supporting letters which should help us in this effort.

2. Updates on CASES-97
   1. Proposal Status.

      We are happy to announce that the S-Pol radar portion of CASES-97, with PI's Jim Wilson of NCAR, Ed Brandes of COMET, Chandrasekhar of Colorado State University, and Dusan Zrnic of NSSL, has been funded through the NCAR/USWRP internal competition. The radar will be sited near the Wichita WSFO WSR-88D radar, southwest of Wichita. Funding of the radar will enable Tammy Weckwerth of NCAR's Advanced Study Program to test the feasibility of using remote radar-signal receivers to study the fair weather boundary layer. These receivers will be sited in the western part of the experimental domain. Regrettably, Claude Duchon and Michael Stewart's proposal was not funded due to severe budget shortfalls in COMET. See updated table.

   2. Site Survey for CASES-97

      Bob Grossman, Peggy LeMone, Steve Oncley (NCAR/ATD) and Kurt Knudson (NCAR/ATD) selected 20 potential sites for surface flux stations during the week of January 6. We are trying to insure that the three ASTER sites, which have time-series as well as flux data, will be located at three different types of site. We were surprised to see two instrumented tall towers (one 70 feet, one 350 feet) in the experimental array. We will try to find out more about these.

      Jerry Klazura, the ABLE site manager, helped us get started on the first day, and showed us the ARM/ABLE profiler site at Beaumont which is online.

      On the second day Grossman and Klazura took to the air to view the watershed and make a first iteration on low-level flight tracks for CASES-97 flux measurements.

      On the last day Grossman went down to Ponca City, the site selected for aircraft operations, to looks at meeting rooms; Grossman and LeMone met with Dave Kehler, the Butler County Agricultural Extension Agent, Dick Elder, the MIC, and Mike Stewart, the SOO, at the Wichita WSFO.

      We are preparing materials for negotiation with landowners, which should start next week. Site locations and descriptions will become available as negotiations are completed.

   3. November CASES-97 Planning Meeting

      On November 18-19, the CASES-97 planning meeting was held at NCAR. CASES-97 PI's presented their goals, data to be collected for their proposal, and needs for supplementary data. Several groups and individuals described instruments that could or would be made available to the CASES-97 efforts. This was followed by discussion of operations decision-making, communications, staffing needs, student opportunities, data management, and distribution of data after the experiment.

      Please see CASES-97 Planning Meeting Summary. If you think changes are needed in the summary, please email Peggy LeMone at lemone@ncar.ucar.edu.

   4. Aircraft Coordination Meeting

      CASES-97 has obtained two aircraft for its scientific use; the NSF Univ. of Wyoming King Air Facility and the NOAA Twin Otter. These aircraft are an important part of the overall expedition. Please see the following descriptions of Aircraft Coordination Meeting below:

      1. Overview of Aircraft Coordination Activities given in Boulder on Nov. 19 and important followups to that meeting -- This is a "long" abstract of the detailed summary below plus recent actions.

      2. Summary of Aircraft Coordination Meeting -- Some of the items covered in that meeting will reappear in the Operations Plan.

      Comments from interested individuals are appreciated. Please contact Bob Grossman (grossman@colorado.edu).

   5. Operations Plan

      There is little to report on the operations plan so far, except that Bob Grossman and Peggy LeMone will take the lead in its construction, with help from NCAR's ATD, UCAR's JOSS, and Argonne's Klazura, in addition to several CASES-97 PI's. We are already getting inquiries on data availability from the community.

      Operations, communications, and living quarters are somewhat dependent on selection of the ASTER central site. We'll keep you posted as to progress. The aircraft base will be at Ponca City, and the air crews have found good living accomodations. The WSFO at Wichita has said they will be willing to help with forecasting, and we will be providing them surface and radiosonde data.

      Thanks to those of you who have sent in your data questionnaires. Data uses and needs are becoming better defined. If you have not filled in your data questionnaire, please do so!

3. Future updates
   In the next few months we plan to include a separate CASES-97 page showing instrumentation and status of CASES-97 experiments. Also look for a Gallery of CASES related images in the near future.

Next update will be in February 1997.

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Email web page inquiries to: Ron Murdock, CASES webmaster at murdock@ucar.edu
Subject: CASES WWW page
Last Modified: 24 Jan 1997